The flower of her benefaction has withered in the desiccation of our gratitude.

In spite of the hurt,
greetings to you on this day of the Opening Convocation of Easter Semester
in this month of the 148th anniversary of the Chartering of the University
of the South by the State of Tennessee. Sadly, it was at the Opening Convocation
of Easter Semester in 1997 when the Louise Claiborne-Armstrong gift to
the University of the South first went missing from its designated and
long standing role in the pageantry at the beginning each calendar year.
Nine tenths of a decade is a long time for a crisis such as ours to remain
unresolved, especially when the error was unwarranted and only brings
suspicion and scorn upon the University of the South.

I regret to
inform you of the progress made in the Repair the Mace project. None has
been made at all. Consequently, alumni dismay has grown into an infectious
disgust with the way things are handled (mishandled!) on the Mountain.
The mistreatment there in Sewanee of Louise Claiborne-Armstrong’s
beautiful ceremonial gift must cease with all immediate urgency.

In a story that began
on the front page of the first section of the New York Times,
we see that The University of the South's famed processional Mace appeared
in the middle of page A28 on November 30, 2005, and also in very bright,
crisp color on the Internet, where it is sure to remain visible for a
very long time, indeed. A close inspection of the photograph confirms
that the Mace STILL REMAINS in three pieces! The orb is disconnected and
the shaft is askew. Remarkably though, the glowing Confederate flag of
the Army of Tennessee remains in the same pristine condition as was displayed
in the University of the South's historic 1984 book by William Strode:

1984

As an aside, I am
fondly reminded today of our Andrew Nelson Lytle, alumnus of the Sewanee
Military Academy, as I see his name and A Christian University and
the Word from that same 1984 book here referenced in a front page
article about The University of the South in the January 2006 Civil
War Courier. Anyone familiar with the highly creative Southern literary
tradition there in Sewanee and its roots in the Vanderbilt Agrarians can
not help but see a vivid analogy develop before their astonished eyes.

Lytle and the Agrarians
wrote in their I'll Take My Stand manifesto that the graceful
Southern tradition was losing to the invasion of "progress"
and Southerners’ chasing the lifestyle of abstraction offered by
Northern materialism. It seems the Mace saga now proves to us all that
the historic Southern appreciation and grace there in Sewanee has been
lost to similar notions of progress, but this time the culprits are the
abstraction of a "respectable" ranking in a national magazine,
new communications and brand marketing, and preferential multicultural
diversity. The victim is the same, only the enemy has changed its name,
but not its intent. Perhaps Lytle was really a prophet, for who knew in
1930 that his militare essay would so perfectly explain our own
distasteful predicament today (he knew, for this truth is universal and
enduring): "We have been slobbered upon by those who
have chewed the mad root's poison, a poison which penetrates to the spirit
and rots the soul."

From there in Sewanee
this past summer was returned the money sent in by the Repair the Mace
donors with no mention in the letter of the Mace's remaining still "broken,"
only that the funds were not needed. By inference, the repairs were assumed
by us to have been completed with monies already there in Sewanee, and
thus our checks were just too late in arriving to be of any help. As a
fellow alumnus, you can imagine our shock when we turned to page A28 while
reading the New York Times article. Have you seen it yet?

2005

We are hearing of
an arrogant dismissive there in Sewanee, and among some of the alumni
leadership, of our concerns for historic preservation on the Mountain.
Our being labeled as "having an agenda of something other than academics"
is somehow a discredit to our efforts to repair the Mace? I await a loud
calling out from those who think despairingly of our non academic "agenda"
when they demand the cancellation of next year's football schedule. Otherwise,
I am left to the conviction that those unappreciative our "agenda"
to help the University of the South get past an embarrassing “accidental”
episode are simply annoyed that our project publicizes stewardship deficiencies
on the Mountain which they would rather blithely ignore. Their whining
of "an agenda other than academics" is a charade. If they think
that the University of the South is an improved institution of higher
academics because it obstinately harbors the brokenness of a relic which
was received with a sacred Episcopal ceremonial blessing and with great
affection in 1965, then I relish the day when their own agendas are openly
known to all alumni and my fellow donors...

General consensus
among us here and among our student friends up on the Mountain is that
the Mace never really "broke," but in truth had been befallen
upon by an invisible legerdemain force- something other than gravity.

Why were we informed
in 1997 by an authority there in Sewanee that it was "broken,"
and why was the reporter from the Atlanta Journal Constitution
told eight years later by University officials that it was likewise "broken?"
The students reported that it "dropped and broke" in an article
found in their Sewanee Legacy newspaper in 1997 (now available
on the sewanee.edu website, where the article should remain). Did anyone
demand a retraction or correction from those student reporters and editor
at the time? I should think not, for their findings have been echoed twice
by those there in Sewanee who have spoken openly for the record in print
about the disastrous fate of the Mace.

Perhaps you alone
within the administration can uniquely empathize with justified concerns
over how many presidents of the Order of Gownsmen, from Opening Convocation
of Easter Semester 1997 until the present, have been deprived their honored
participation in a 32 year long tradition that began at the Board of Trustees
meeting back in 1965. I have seen many pictures in Cap and Gown
yearbooks of numerous presidents of the Order of Gownsmen carrying the
Mace, and their faces convey nothing but pride and joy. Did you see Order
of Gownsmen President Erle J. Newton III’s facial expression in
the photograph of him in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as he held the
embarrassingly insufficient “substitute” mace? The contrast
between his predecessors’ glad happiness and his own suffering humiliation
perfectly portrays the disparity between my misled, but contented, former
impressions compared to how I feel now about what I now know of the inner
workings there in Sewanee and the accepted attitudes operating behind
name change

Ironically though,
through his pained near grimace one can detect a hint of humorous satisfaction
in his eye. He must have been thinking as the newspaper photographer was
at work that a picture of the little mace in the Atlanta Journal Constitution
will eventually out the Truth about the big one. It very nearly has, but
we still need more of an explanation from the Sewanee Obstinistas.

We often hear lamentations
of a saddening loss of the ethos binding student traditions there in Sewanee.
Lack of proper supervisory encouragement by uninitiated and uncaring faculty
coming from far away and unsympathetic backgrounds is usually blamed.
Those faculty have the opportunity to put an end to the inane notion that
academically superior students should not wear the Gown because doing
so appears to others as a “showing off” gesture and hurts
the feelings of students who have not yet earned their own Gown. Only
a Marxian love colony would allow that kind of nonsense be spoken by the
high set of students who attend the University and receive their Gowns
within the holy walls of All Saints’ Chapel. The loss of the Mace
is the loss of the Gown. And it can not be said any more clearly that
the unapproved administrative cancellation of the once respected tradition
of the O.G. Mace bearer has become a tragic allegory upon which the malaise
of all concerned alumni continues its impelled convergence.

Where else but in
Sewanee, Tennessee, would student leaders of an honorary academic society
organized in 1873 by an Episcopal priest/Confederate veteran revel in
carrying the official sovereign sceptre that proudly displays the Confederate
battle flag, and then regret not carrying it when they are denied that
opportunity, especially when no sufficient explanation is given? Those
fumbled disassembling excuses which are relayed to us from the Mountain,
or we read in the New York Times, make no plausible sense. Maybe
only up there at “the Episcopal University” can they pass
for what is sensible these days.

No doubt the most
distressing thing I have heard during this episode in the history of the
University of the South is that a high ranking official there in Sewanee
has let out a declaration that the Mace had “outlived its usefulness.”

Who are these people
who have been there for ten minutes and think they can pass final and
binding judgment on an artifact which was consecrated on the High Altar
of All Saints’ Chapel by the Chancellor and President of the Board
of Trustees, and then used as intended by the donor with decorous ceremony
for 32 years before “accidentally breaking?” Does being in
an “accidentally broken” condition mean that gifts to the
University automatically “outlive their usefulness?” Pray
tell then, what is the inevitable fate of the United Daughters of the
Confederacy’s General Kirby-Smith monument in Sewanee, Tennessee,
if it is ever “accidentally” vandalized? Will that be the
excuse officials up there use to retire it from the landscape, i.e. because
it has “outlived its usefulness?”

Sewanee, Tennessee

It is difficult to
express to the current administration what a regretful decision that would
be and all the ways they would come to know it, but I am confident that
I may be getting close to explaining the continued regrets the University
will have for not repairing the Mace immediately in 1997 and putting it
back into use as Louise Claiborne-Armstrong required as a permanent condition
of her gift.

And what of the Rebel’s
Rest marker if so ill a wind blows again across the Domain with such wicked
ferocity that the marker tumbles to the ground? Will it then have “outlived
its usefulness?” And likewise for the “negative image”
windows in All Saints’ Chapel? What protections assure their sanctity?
Why should they be safer than the Mace?

Did this said administrator
contact the heir of Louise Claiborne-Armstrong who still lives in Apopka,
Florida, and ask his permission for declaring her gift as having “outlived
its usefulness?” Perhaps that heir will let us know if she intended
the Mace to be used only until 1997, or beyond that grim year. If he knows
that the University gave her no indication in 1965 that we would stop
using the Mace in 1997 and only gave her indications that forever would
the Mace be used as she intended, then we have a grave problem on our
hands, yes.

“Outlived its
usefulness” is an implicit recognition that the Mace was at one
time useful. What could that use have been? Perhaps it was useful in honoring
the deed of gift and its restrictions, and to honor the assurances made
by the University to Louise Claiborne-Armstrong that her gift would be
maintained and protected, and to honor a hero of Southern warfare during
the Centennial of the War Between the States, and to honor the contribution
to the University’s history that Nathan Bedford Forrest’s
troopers made when patrolling the Cumberland Plateau area during the summer
of 1863?

Thankfully, we all
know that it was NOT useful as an obdurately regressive gesture during
the Civil Rights movement, for the University of the South would not have
participated in such a statement, would it? Of course not. Declarations
now that it has “outlived its usefulness” are suggestive that
the Mace somehow was a symbol in 1965 of racial hegemony, and that by
its “accidentally breaking” in 1997 such symbolism is now
defunct.

The Mace was veraciously
used from 1965 until its inexplicable demise. Who at the University did
not know all along during those 32 years that its prominently displayed
Seal of the Confederacy, the Army of Tennessee Confederate battle flag,
and the memorialized name of General Nathan Bedford Forrest could be interpreted
by some as expressions of segregationist attitudes? Yet, the University
of the South continued on with the tradition for more than three decades
in spite of this knowledge. Any thinking person who understands life there
in diverse Sewanee and the University’s preferential budget allocations
and staffing allotments, knows that the Mace is unsullied by those obnoxious
attitudes. At the University of the South, perhaps more than at anywhere
else in our region, Confederate symbolism does not in any way represent
segregation. The many Confederate reminders found on campus there in Sewanee
are cleansed of any sinister intent or message, and once exhibited on
the Mountain, they remain sanitized of any unpleasant taint. Thank God
there is the University of the South for the South!

Has the burden of
remembering its place in Southern history become too much to bear, and
unbearable are its Southern heroes that keep it there? If anything, the
usefulness of the South for Southerners is reviving, not the opposite
as has been officially declared by administrative workers there in Sewanee
who hire consultants to speak for a tiny segment of opinion. Southerners
have learned, and Sewanee beginning in 2004 made itself Exhibit A in this
lesson, that those who snidely claim that our Mace has “outlived
its usefulness” are not of us or for us, verily, they are very much
against us. They do not prompt us with offerings that we should join them
in some better garden of their tillage where the shade is cooler and the
fruit sweeter, but that just because they say so, we should burn and salt
our own garden and so suit their lower pleasure and prejudice.

Offering ourselves
to negotiations with those sorts just makes us their next victim. They
make demands of us and offer nothing in return. What kind of a people
does that? Tyrannicals, that is who, perhaps a most modern example being
the present Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans.

The South’s
regional character is incomprehensible to these alien people who declare
our Mace as having “outlived its usefulness.” Sewanee’s
allure is its provincialism; the students express it through the standing
traditions, and the Domain advertises it through Confederate memorials.
The right kind of students and faculty who belong on the Domain are pulled
there by an invisible force buried deep within the Mountain. Those who
do not understand Sewanee have been too welcomed for too long. They should
find education and employment elsewhere in places that suit them and are
welcoming of their kind of thinking. We have grown weary of their coming
to Sewanee with notions of improving it. Before their arrival, Sewanee
was just fine, the Mace was just fine, and everybody who loves both knows
that it is was just fine for Sewanee to have its natural personality on
display.

Stark Young in
I’ll Take My Stand said it best, and those who revile Sewanee
had better heed that we take his words very seriously: “But
provincialism proper is a fine trait. It is akin to a man’s interest
in his own center, which is the most deeply rooted consideration that
he has, the source of his direction, health and soul.”

If anything, the
usefulness of the Mace has not ended as may be wished for and so claimed
by some, but in truth its usefulness is living on as the awakened consciousness
of the very soul of Sewanee gains strength and direction.

Confederate symbols,
flags, monuments, generals and names have been embroiled in disruptive
controversies across the South ever since that NAACP resolution of 1991.
The rhetoric in these debates often blames the Confederate memorials for
emotional distress because it reminds viewers of slavery, oppression and
discrimination. If you pay attention, you will regularly hear during these
wildly emotional exclamations that the Confederate battle flag represents
to blacks the same thing that the Nazi swastika represents to Jews.

Jews often respond with great umbrage and justified moral indignance at
that comparison. They are deeply offended by those who are not a part
of their history claiming, only for personal gain, a moral equity between
Africans in bondaged labor to Jews in tortured death. The Nazis had a
very different relationship with the Jews than the slave owners had with
their legal property, whom they fed, clothed, housed, and lovingly baptized
into Christ’s redeeming salvation. On the Old South plantation,
the Master and his Lady and the servants and the field hands constituted
an interdependent family community, and when most successful, it was noted
for mutual affection and shared devotion. During the Third Reich of Hitler,
Himmler, Heydrich, Hess, Eichman, Speer, Goebbles, and Goering, in that
Germany the Israelites were hunted, hoarded, banished and exterminated.
All Christians of good conscience can feel the Jewish resentment at comparisons
between the Confederate battle flag and the Nazi swastika. The battle
flag was the soldiers' flag, and under it Southern men and boys of the
Christian and Jewish faiths fought to protect their homeland from an invading
enemy. (The University of the South agreed with this historical fact,
so it blessed upon the High Altar the Mace which contains the Confederate
flag, and led the Vice-Chancellor into our holy sanctuary of the Christian
faith with the sacred relic for 32 years.) The Nazi swastika was a symbol
of a brutal political party and its military legions who invaded Europe
with aspirations of conquest and subjugation, and it was the symbol under
which was implemented the so called Final Solution. Malicious is the intent
of those who have successfully linked in peoples' minds the Confederates
and the Nazis, and ignorance just breeds more of the same. Jews will not
let themselves become victims of such nonsense, and we should learn the
same.

The Confederate
battle flag on the University of the South’s processional Mace is
not in and of itself the institution of slavery or in and of itself and
its nature any of the troubles that derived from that legality. The flag
on the Mace reflects the University’s historical drama and reminds
us of the undying Confederate fighting spirit that was required for rebuilding
the revived University upon the ashes of hostile Yankee fires.

Seeing that flag
in person, or even in pictures, reminds some people of slavery. When it
is not seen, does the bliss of forgetting the institution of slavery and
Sewanee’s connection to it just vanish from everyone’s mind?
Can all of history and memory be swept into oblivion? Would an educated
and thinking people advocate that it should?

We must all join
together in an understanding of unity that while the inanimate flag itself
is not slavery, it inaccurately makes an emotional representation of slavery
in some minds. Even so, slavery is illegal, segregation is illegal, and
discrimination is illegal. The Confederate flags and monuments there in
Sewanee do not reveal tell tale signs of a brewing a plot to bring back
into legality that institution and those practices.

The gentleman of
our Southern antiquity who founded the University of the South all became
citizens of the American Confederate States, and while fighting for an
honorable independence, the grandest of them was visited by a battlefield
death. The Episcopal Confederate veterans who survived the War then renewed
his University project. The institution can not ever allow itself to be
shamed into feeling embarrassment because of those men, as well as for
the many lovely ex Confederate ladies who graced Sewanee with their goodness
and society. If the University of the South ever bows in contrition because
of its history, then the employees there will have sacrificed the sacred
blessing of might and fight and suffering and resurging. This must never
be done for the benefit of a foreign and hostile ideology, and if the
tragedy ever transpires, then lifted and taken away from the Mountain
will be the mantle with which the Lord on His Throne so lovingly has protected
the University of the South. Woe be unto the revilers.

The Confederate flag
is not slavery, oppression and hate; it is simple strands of cotton woven
into cloth and stitched, or rich enamel painted on the Mace. Those who
agitate against it are aggravated by what they think the Confederate flag
represents within the minds of those who display it. The hate they perceive
is presumed to be in the minds of others and not actually inside of the
inert flag. Prejudging as a single purpose the reason that all Confederate
flags are displayed is a pre judgment base upon the differences between
the races of judge and the convicted, and that is always an agitation
based upon the truest definition of racism.

If anyone projects
onto the University of the South that it maintains the Confederate flag
on its Mace, the Confederate Seal in its Chapel, Confederate flags and
generals in its library, and a Confederate monument on its lawn because
institutionally it longs for a return of the days of the Old South, then
Sewanee becomes just another victim of a prejudging racist construct.
To that outburst of rude behavior needs be delivered with righteous vigor
the strongest possible public scorn that the remaining self respecters
within the administration can muster.

The entire time General
Edmund Kirby-Smith fought for the Confederacy, slavery was constitutionally
legal in several states which remained within the Union. It even remained
legal for several months after he surrendered in 1865. His beautiful monument
there in Sewanee no more promotes the revival of slavery than does the
American eagle on our monetary currency screech for the same.

Under the American
flag was slavery legal from the time that flag was adopted until slavery
was outlawed in December of 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment. Under that
American flag did avowed white supremacist Abraham Lincoln claim the authority
to free slaves in a separate country, but in his Emancipation Proclamation
he did not free those in his own country. Citizens and scholars who most
understand the truths of American history are not fooled by propagandized
worship of Abraham Lincoln. It has best been said that after President
Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, a slave chained in Baltimore,
Maryland, would have had to escape to Richmond, Virginia, to be presumed
free.

If anyone ever demands
that the General Kirby-Smith, C.S.A., monument on the Domain of The University
of the South come down, and does so without simultaneously demanding that
American flag on University Avenue in front of Thompson Union come down
at the same time, and also demand that the Lincoln monument in Washington
D.C., be leveled, then all of Sewanee should shout them away for using
vile hypocrisy and hateful prejudice against that which we hold dear.

The Sewanee Purple
reported during Easter Semester of 2004 that a committee discussed the
Order of Gownsmen resolution for the returning of the Southern state flags
to All Saints’ Chapel where they have always belonged. The story
related that students can be offended by the Confederate portions of some
of the flags, which must have most specifically meant that of the State
of Mississippi.

Did this committee of Sewanee's best intelligentsia interview the United
Daughters of the Confederacy General Edmund Kirby-Smith chapter there
in Sewanee, Tennessee, to get their direction on the proper display of
the state flags? Those Daughters were in part responsible for the placement
of the flags originally, and the time has come for them to have their
say about the tragedy of the flags' sudden removal.

Taking seriously
such cries of pain over the Confederate flag there in Sewanee would be
easier if the complainers were simultaneously demanding that the University’s
extant Confederate battle flag on display in Jessie Ball duPont Library
be removed. We have heard nothing of a movement among faculty and students
for making this demand, nor of and insistence that the Seal of the Confederacy
and recently installed Confederate battle flag be removed from the stained
glass windows in the Chapel. Why the wounded wailing over the State of
Mississippi’s flag and not all other Confederalia offenses so ubiquitously
prevalent on the Domain of the University of the South?

Their narrow selectivity just casts suspicion upon the intentions and
agendas of those who groan and moan the loudest. Most notably, once a
Sewanee Confederate symbol is removed, there is great outcry and gnashing
that in no way should it ever be returned to sight, even if its removal
was incorrect in the extreme. (We are witnessing this course through employees'
dealings with the Mace and Chapel flags. How can one be left to any other
conclusion than that a method is at work there? If you doubt these suspicions,
I encourage you to pick up a copy of this month's Civil War Courier
and read the front page "Timeline" article about what has been
happening there in Sewanee, Tennessee. How could anyone doubt that some
agenda has been prosecuted against beautiful manifestations of Confederate
memory at The University of the South? When the time and opportunity are
available, I am certain there will be public investigations into just
what and who are behind these shameful misdeeds.)

With as broad an availability of Confederate memorials on campus from
which to choose, any honest attacks on them must include the entire collection
and not only the state flags. Either they should blame for their hurt
feelings everything associated with the Confederacy there in Sewanee or
nothing at all.

One is left to the
conclusion that there is no real offense. The worries of such things are
just phantoms in the imaginations of impressionable young newly manufactured
leftists who are trying to act out the way they think they should after
being trained in the high luxurious art of “socially conscious sensitivity
and compassion” by the progressive faculty there at the 21st century’s
“Sewanee: The University of the South.” Could it really be
true that tuition and fees expended by Southern parents in the attainment
of a Universitas Meridiana degree for their dear children now
total about $140,000, not including the inflation, fraternity and sorority
dues, and automobile, entertainment and shopping allowances?

If the cost is really
that high, then those crass cynics may have a point when they claim that
the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, appears as nothing
more than an expensive country club with a built in learning camp included
for the beautiful youth of the South who spend their evening leisure putting
on a two semester long debutante presentation ball.

But they are wrong,
because after we receive our education there and earn our diploma, we
do not go on our return pilgrimage to a country club for praying in a
chapel as holy as is All Saints’, or become as renewed to the authenticity
of our regional culture by the thorough immersion in Southern history
and Confederate legends that we still can breathe deeply within us from
the air at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.

So many, but not
all, of the Confederate symbols, memorials, monuments and names survived
the changes during the last decade of the prior century. Those that did
were protected not only because they were so firmly attached to the physicality
of the Domain by those wonderful souls who came before us, but because
there in Sewanee everyone enjoys having their intellects stimulated and
expanded. The enduring Confederate nostalgia there in Sewanee is available
for the broad whole of Sewanee’s diverse constituencies. All can
learn there a grandly fascinating subject as they walk around within the
Southern history museum and exhibit that is the Domain of the University
of the South.

Sauntering around
the campus buildings evokes memories of the men who founded the University
of the South and inspires appreciation for how they did things for their
own way and in their own way, and not for the appeasement of other cultures
or approval of other peoples. The independent individualism they exemplified
lives on in the hearts and minds and spirits of the truest Sewanee students
and alumni. And for these, the continued desecration of the Mace there
in Sewanee is intolerable. “National respect” has been too
expensive indeed, and the time has come for Louise Claiborne-Armstrong
to stop paying the price for that.

During the 150th
anniversary of the War Between the States from 2011 until 2015, the Domain
of the University of the South will become a favorite destination for
heritage tourist who will travel in search of the places that made Tennessee
such contested ground during the War and hallowed after it. They will
traverse the state and follow the routes of the numerous armies, both
Confederate and Federal, that marched across the land. Of great interest
to that five year long flow of tourists will be the legends of Tennessee’s
General Nathan Bedford Forrest and the numerous memorials erected in his
honor. They will come to Sewanee from over in Memphis, the town where
they will have visited his grave and equestrian monument. If it is still
there, that is. A city commission last year agitated aggressively to have
the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue removed from sight because a certain
constituency found it “offensive.” They will continue their
huffing and puffing, and the precedents elsewhere prove that they will
eventually blow the thing down, if not up.

Memphis, Tennessee

When these tourists
make it up to Sewanee, Tennessee, they will head straight into the Supply
Store for a fresh copy of Andrew Lytle’s Bedford Forrest and
His Critter Company. The myriad Lytle books sold there in Sewanee
weave together Sewanee’s Southern literary tradition with Sewanee’s
place in Southern history, and Lytle is the golden thread that binds the
tightest.

From the Supply Store
they will head to the University Archives for a viewing of the General
Nathan Bedford Forrest Memorial Mace. It will be truly sad indeed if when
they get there, they are timidly ushered to our “broken” memorial
to the General, the repair of which had been funded by donors and rejected
by employees. They will not understand how such a thing could be true
at The University of the South.

But if they do try
to make sense of the debasement of a relic donated in memory of one of
the South's most famous, they will only have this illustrative explanation
for the demise of a cultural and historical resource that will become
so valuable during 2011-2015: The South’s prime University is being
managed by the same kind of folks who run the City Commission of Memphis-
panderers, all of them just alike.

What living portions
of the University of the South’s respectable reputation that may
still be around by then will suffer a pounding, bleeding fall from grace.
The unmendable wound will be seen by the entire region as the final evidence
that the University of the South was brought low by the self inflicted
wielding of its own smashing hammer and slashing sickle as it progressed
onward to take its bow before that fickle audience of “national
respect.” The right kind of branding consultant could have warned
them that bowing to that abstraction would one day demand more than a
gesture. Eventually, nothing less would do than prone flat prostrate utter
submission.

Who could deny that
one of the primary benefits of receiving a college education there in
Sewanee is the development of a literary, aesthetic, spiritual, social,
and creative sensitivity to the complexity of our nation's history and
the differing experiences that many peoples have had during our span?
The University of the South’s own historical saga is a lens though
which one can peer into the unfolding tapestry of the histories of the
State of Tennessee, the entire deep South region, the whole of the Southern
section, the current Union, the prior Disunion, and even the first Union.
Across the visible chronology of that historioscopic viewscape can be
seen why it is necessarily appropriate to acknowledge those true feelings
against Confederate flags, names, and generals as intense, motivating,
and often profitable.

Wondrous benefits
tumble out of the Sewanee Santa’s goodie bag upon those types who
answered Lipman-Hearne’s “research questions” about
“the South” and claimed the rank offensiveness of it. Enriched
are those who have their own free Bridge learning session, their own free
recruitment weekends, their own free counselor in the Admissions Office,
their own free administrator, their own free cultural center, and their
own free trip to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Probably to most
of them, the Confederacy is a painful reminder of slavery, oppression,
and hate. (Even this assumption is racist, because of the implicit assumption
of knowing accurately how people think because of how they look. Sewanee
teaches this, so it must be the good kind of racism.) A group so inclined
must be shocked indeed to innocently stumble across the Confederate battle
flag on the wall in the library there in Sewanee. But done for them all
is a favor by so much of Sewanee’s Confederate memorabilia openly
and prominently visible, because unlocked are the powers of their minds
to reason this teaser out for themselves: The Confederacy is offensive;
here in Sewanee are many Confederate symbols; Sewanee is not a hateful
place to me, but is in fact the most friendly and generous place that
I’ve ever been; the University of the South would not display a
symbol of hate; maybe I have been misled about the Confederacy!

The heritage landscape
there in Sewanee is an agent of a portion of exactly that for which the
University is there: The development of human intellect. Keeping the Mace
broken is denying the fulfillment of that afore described process from
those who could most benefit from it. Not only is the injustice done to
Louise Claiborne-Armstrong, but to them as well.

We hear that there
are employees on the payroll of the University who have complained about
the Mace’s symbols, about our Repair the Mace project, about the
very negative and damaging publicity the University has received about
the Mace, and about the kind of President of the Order of Gownsmen who
would want to revive the tradition that Louise Claiborne-Armstrong began
with her gift by again carrying it in academic processions. Please have
these employees contact me for a discussion of University history and
the long standing role of community memory in the South.

If they are honestly
offended by the Mace, and if they are not the hysterical sort and have
retained a portion of their innate logic and reasoning skills in spite
of working at “the Episcopal University,” then maybe they
can convince even me and other culturally sensitive alumni that the time
has finally come for The University of the South’s honorable retiring
from use its United Daughters of the Confederacy’s General Kirby-Smith
monument, its Seal of the Confederacy and Confederate battle flag in the
windows of All Saints’ Chapel, its Bishop General of the Confederacy
and Presiding Bishop of the Confederacy from Convocation Hall, its Confederate
flags and generals in duPont Library, its Confederate monuments in University
Cemetery, and the streets still named for states that joined the Confederate
States of America.

In the January 15,
2006, Living Church, I was introduced to Richard Luker from the
History News Network website. His full comment is particularly intriguing,
if not predictive: “If you're at Vanderbilt, it's one thing
to try to rename a building. If you're at Sewanee, you may have to rethink
the whole foundation of the institution.”

Maybe he is right,
and perhaps those who are living in the past have just not yet accepted
the present and have not joined the rest as they march into the future.
But for me, I am open to persuasion that the 21st century’s utopia
there in Sewanee is more desirable than the 19th and 20th century versions.
I look forward to hearing from anyone there in Sewanee who may be influenced
by the kind of 21st century thinking that promotes such alien notions
as this necessity for rebuilding the very foundation of the University
of the South. Rethinking and rebuilding will unavoidably include repudiating
through laying low in the minds of all Southerners who love the University
our very founders of the institution whose unified Gospel ministry established
the University of the South and the movement that chose Sewanee Mountain
as the physical expression of the spiritual ideals which were the foundation
of their University.

Please have those
people contact me to begin the dialogue. Perhaps the ones who led the
Diversity Retreat that was so praised by DEEP for raising students’
consciousnesses and changing their attitudes through discussions of “Privilege
and Prejudice” would be the ones from whom I would like to hear.
(See the attachment below. Were these leaders being paid by the University
for leading the retreat, or were they volunteering their own weekend time?)
They must be a very convincing bunch, and I offer my attitude to them
for a’changing. The Diversity Retreat leaders can reach me a the
postal address above to make their introductions.

It will be a pleasure
to meet them in person or as an organized group during my next visit to
Mountain while I am there with other concerned alumni at the community
forum investigating the Mace's sad saga of honor to dishonor. They are
even welcome to speak at the hearings and make their case on why perpetuating
a grave injustice against Louise Claiborne-Armstrong is a good thing for
the University. If they will bring a printed statement, we will consider
including it in our press release following the event.

A glaring paradox
announced itself to us in the form of the new communications and marketing
initiative there in Sewanee. In an effort at becoming more acceptable
to Northern and minority students by placating their bigotries against
“the South,” they are now lured to the University of the South
with the new name “Sewanee: The University of the South.”
When they get up on the Mountain, they are then expected to tolerate the
daily message of the United Daughters of the Confederacy’s General
Edmund Kirby-Smith monument, the Seal of the Confederacy, and the Confederate
flags and generals, etc.? Who will be fooled by the hypocrisy?

If the University
of the South allows itself made embarrassed by “the South”
in its own name, then how will it not acquiesce in front of demands that
it admit embarrassment by its most tangible expressions of the South’s
defining era? If proper contrition for offensive misdeeds of regional
self proclamation and cultural territorial marking includes cleansing
the Domain of its glorification of the Confederacy, then will it not have
to do that out of respect for the feelings of the others who claim the
hurt? Those who think so have been watching employees there in Sewanee
show a disdain for Louise Claiborne-Armstrong and a scorn for the General
Nathan Bedford Memorial Mace she donated to the University of the South.
Who thinks satisfaction stops there and that more of an apologetic catharsis
will not be expected?

Readers of the truest
Southern literature will recognize in the revolution of the new name just
what Stark Young wrote regarding the new order here down South; the newness
of that order and the newness of the name are both deplorable, and Young
captures the crux of our knowing: “To have it good for us we
shall have to see it in the light of our own tradition, our conceptions,
our preferences, the flower of another way of life, more of which is left
within us than, in the heat of a new impulse, we may think.”

Everyone has learned
over the last couple of years that there remains a great deal of it still
within us, and thank God for it, because without it, the University of
the South would have been one brutal insult closer to its demise.

I think that perhaps
not yet has the new phenomenon caught on there in Sewanee, but inevitably
will by 2011, of black youth sporting Confederate symbols in their dorm
rooms and on their clothing. This strangely ironic new trend has been
explained to me as a natural reaction of the educated, free-thinking youth
within any society or culture.

The Confederate battle
flag is the accepted world wide symbol of resistance to oppression and
tyranny. The adoption of it by black youth is eloquently logical. Some
display it because they are rebels at heart and enjoy defying the NAACP
that tells them how they are supposed to think just because they are black.
Others adopt it a symbol of pride in their home region, along with that
overt rebellious flare which ever springs from our Southern soil. Then
again, some use it just to agitate their own community, and others for
the agitation of whites whose own racial identities are so defined by
it. What a marvelously diverse and versatile symbol for the free American
people of that great Andrew Jacksonian tradition to use however, whenever,
and wherever they so chose!

This past summer
the Associated Press released a story about blacks who are ignoring the
NAACP’s continued boycott of South Carolina. The boycott goes on
and on, even in spite of the South Carolina legislature’s complying
with NAACP demands that the Confederate battle flag be removed from atop
the Capitol in Columbia.

Interviewed was Miss
Marquita Jackson, who not only rebelled against the NAACP, but wore a
Confederate rebel battle flag swimsuit just to make sure nobody could
miss the point, and believe me, they did not. Regarding the NAACP, she
told the news reporter: “I spend my money wherever I want to...
They don't give it to me.”

What a splendidly
defiant young American capitalist woman, and just the kind who would most
enrich the diversity of the entire Sewanee community! She sallies forth
in the finest tradition of that first Rebel, General George Washington.
(All students there in Sewanee are daily given the opportunity for grateful
reflection with gratitude on the father of our Constitutional Republic
as they gaze reverently upward upon the Seal of the Confederacy in the
Chapel windows and see him there in the center, just as they see the Greek
Cross of Christ is in the center of the Seal of the University of the
South. And just as that cross is surrounded by the links representing
the owning Southern Episcopal dioceses of the University of the South,
so is Mr. Washington surrounded by a classical wreath crafted of the agricultural
staples of the Confederacy, and he remains there justifiably mounted with
imperious dignity upon his fine equestrian steed bred in the purist pasture
womb of Virginia.)

The Admissions Office
should contact Miss Jackson immediately and offer whatever scholarship
inducements are needed to have her enrolled in the next Summer Session
or by Advent Semester 2006 at the latest!

And what a grand
inspiration these young people like Miss Jackson have: The adoption of
those insults your enemy fires at you as your badge of pride is as fine
a Southern and Sewanee tradition as any. Our own Major George Rainsford
Fairbanks, C.S.A., knew that the Confederates were Constitutional loyalists
and not wagers of Rebellion against the government of these United States.
Out of proud defiance, he nonetheless adopted the “Rebel”
moniker as the name of his 1866 Rebel’s Rest cottage. The University
now enjoys the log home as its guest house. May the Good Lord ever bless
his memory, his home, and his grave monument in University Cemetery.

Some of the worst
news we hear from the Mountain includes falsely promoted notions that
Nathan Bedford Forrest was not a part of the University, and therefore
the Mace does not need repairing. I have even read such idiocy in the
public Internet blogs.

My own research has
revealed at least sixteen siginificant direct and anciliary events through
which he is indeed an important part of our University’s history,
and employees there should be proud to be on the payroll of such a voraciously
Southern institution that is indelibly bound to him:

Nathan Bedford
Forrest and his cavalry rode from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Murfreesboro,
Tennessee, on the successful July 13, 1862, raid for freeing the
citizens from Yankee imprisonment. On the way there, these Confederates
passed through Beersheba Springs Resort on the Cumberland Plateau
and past antebellum cottages of Bishops Otey and Polk. The pounding
hooves of their mighty chargers shook the ground, and the very altar
upon which the Trustees accepted the Charter of the University of
the South from the Tennessee legislature intimately knew those tremors
so very full of hope and victory. That altar is there in Sewanee,
Tennessee, now, and it still remembers those riders of liberty and
the power of their purpose.

Nathan Bedford
Forrest’s cavalry captured portions of the vicious Wilder’s
Mounted Infantry after these had molested the Confederate communications
line at University Place during the Army of Tennessee’s protection
of Middle Tennessee.

Nathan Bedford
Forrest’s cavalry fought on the Confederate right flank at
the great victory at Chickamauga Creek while the Chancellor and
President of the Board of Trustees of the University of the South
commanded the entire right wing of the Army of Tennessee.

After the War,
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a visitor to Sewanee, Tennessee, and
taught a young citizen the proper way to mount a horse for riding
on the Domain.

The General
Nathan Bedford Forrest Memorial Mace contains the Seal of the Confederacy
and the Army of Tennessee Confederate battle flag; the same Seal
is in the All Saints’ Chapels windows, and a Confederate battle
flag was recently installed in a new window there; two Confederate
flags are mounted in Jessie Ball duPont Library.

Louise Claiborne-Armstrong’s father rode in General Nathan
Bedford Forrest’s Confederate cavalry, and that very Confederate
veteran’s son, James Morton Armstrong, attended the Grammar
School and College at the University of the South while some of
our famous Confederate veterans were still walking and teaching
on the Domain, such as General Edmund Kirby-Smith (commander, Confederate
Trans Mississippi), Brigadier General Francis Asbury Shoup (chief
of artillery, Confederate Army of Tennessee), and Rev. Dr. William
Porcher DuBose. All of these are buried under magnificent monuments
in the University Cemetery.

Louise Claiborne-Armstrong memorialized her brother through a gift
of the window in the Chaplain's office in All Saints' Chapel which
contains the coats of arms of Rev. Dr. William Porcher DuBose and
Rt. Rev. Thomas Frank Gailor. Bishop Gailor was a leading promoter
of the memory and legacy of General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Louise
Claiborne-Armstrong honored and perpetuted Bishop Gailor's tradition
through her gift of the General Nathan Bedford Forrest Memorial
Mace to the Univeristy of the South.

Rt. Rev. Thomas Frank Gailor, third Bishop of Tennessee, wrote the
review of Life of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest as published
in the Sewanee Review.

Bishop Gailor delivered the Invocation at the unveiling and dedication
of the Forrest Monument in Memphis.

The General Kirby-Smith Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy
there in Sewanee, Tennessee, earned their place in the Honor Roll
of donors to the Forrest Monument in Memphis.

Bishop Gailor, while in office as Chancellor and President of the
Board of Trustees of the Univeristy of the South, orated at the
placement of the court house tablet in Murfreesboro, which reads,
"Erected to the memory of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest by
the United Daughters of the Confederacy for heroic services rendered
to the citizens of Murfreesboro on July 13, 1862."

The bronze bust of the founder of the University of the South,
which is found on the ground floor of Jesse Ball duPont Library,
was sculpted by the grandson of a Confederate soldier who had fought
during the War with General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The gift of
the General Nathan Bedford Forrest memorial to the University of
the South was solemnly blessed and consecrated upon the High Altar
of All Saints’ Chapel during a Board of Trustees service in
the Chapel on Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ birthday,
1965, by Bishop Charles C. J. Carpenter of the Episcopal Diocese
of Alabama, then the Chancellor and President of the Board of Trustees.
Bishop Carpenter’s predecessors in that penultimate office
within the University’s governance included a senior bishop
of the Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America (Otey),
the Bishop General of the Confederacy (Polk), the Presiding Bishop
of the Confederacy (Elliott), a Confederate veteran who was a prominent
postbellum Confederate apologists (Dudley), a Confederate general
who became the “Orator Laureate of the Lost Cause” while
Chaplain General of the United Confederate Veterans (Capers), the
son of a Confederate soldier killed at the Battle of Perryville
(Gailor), the son of a Confederate general (Bratton), and the son
of a Confederate surgeon (Mikell).

The General
Nathan Bedford Forrest Memorial Mace led Vice-Chancellor Edward
McCrady into the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta, Georgia, during
the installation of former University Chaplain Rev. David Collins
as the new Dean.

Andrew Nelson
Lytle’s Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company is
sold in the University Supply store there in Sewanee, as it should
be, because it preserved on paper for us all the spiritual emanations
of General Forrest. This book, so closely linked with Sewanee, Tennessee,
is credited as containing one of the best historical explanations
of War Between the States ever written. Everyone in Sewanee will
one day learn to feel the pride of being a part of a campus where
Andrew Lytle is buried in University Cemetery while General Nathan
Bedford Forrest is memorialized with the inscription on the processional
Mace.

The General Nathan Bedford Forrest Memorial Mace has been widely
written about in several notable publications, including Sewanee
Legacy, Sewanee Purple, Southern Partisan, Atlanta Journal Constitution,
New York Times, and most recently, this very month in Civil
War Courier, with more articles expected,
of course. In this inevitable course, Nathan Bedford Forrest will
in the future become even more a part of the history of the University
of the South than he is today, and thereby and therein, he is our
future...

Just who are these
people who could contrive a notion that Nathan Bedford Forrest and his
memorial Mace have nothing to do with the University or its history? When
one considers that there are people and objects up there which are given
official deference and promotion while possessing not a whit of native
attachment to the University or its history, then for the students, Gownsmen,
alumni and donors, the Mace now reasserts itself into the urgent devotion
our consciousnesses, and its immediate repair is mandatory.

Just as was later
exemplified by the character of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the University
of the South was founded and made by men who did things their own way,
forming meaningful traditions by their own inspired methods. Nothing about
the project was ever intended for the appeasement of other cultures or
approval of other peoples. The independent individualism represented by
our founders and Confederates such as Nathan Bedford Forrest lives on
in the hearts and minds and spirits of the truest Sewanee students, alumni
and community members. And for us, as well as all decent people, the continued
desecration of the Mace there in Sewanee is intolerable.

No other lady in the grand pantheon of women donors who have helped make
Sewanee what it is today have been as mistreated as Louise Claiborne-Armstrong.
“National respect” has been too expensive indeed, and lust
for it has led in the disrespectful fouling of the sweetest flower in
the garden, our own lady of adoration, Louise Claiborne-Armstrong. The
price has been too high, and the time has come for her to stop having
to pay for it.

If the unknowing
had previously thought Nathan Bedford Forrest was not a part of the University’s
history, they certainly can not deny that he is a part of it now, thanks
to the attention he has received in the press stories about The University
of the South’s rebirth as “Sewanee: The University of the
South.”

Folks in far away
places who had never previously heard of “Sewanee: The University
of the South” will now all come to visit and be interested mostly
in seeing this famous Mace about which they have been reading so much.
Did Lipman-Hearne’s “research reveal” that instead of
presenting the so called “negative image,” that the cultural
and historical resources on the Domain which keep telling the woven together
stories of the South and the University of the South would become stop
number one for heritage tourists and for alert, curious prospective applicants?
If not, then Lipman-Hearne asked the wrong research questions of the wrong
sample population.

It would be a delight
to see new results of their research if the same questions as before were
asked again of the same respondents after they read the New York Times
article and saw our Confederate memorial Mace in it. (“Deliverance,”
gracious goodness!)

There is much relishing
among us of this irony: The University encouraged Louise Claiborne-Armstrong
to make her gift, and then used the gift for 32 years before clumsily
and dishonorably trying to depart from the tradition. The result has been
that the University’s public relations message is now told by uncontrolled
press reports which put so much attention on the Mace and Nathan Bedford
Forrest that now both are the national public
image of the University of the South. How can it get any better than that?
Thankfully, this bizarre phenomenon does give her but a tiny portion of
the justice she is owed.

Nathan Bedford Forrest’s
association with the Ku Klux Klan has been pointed out in the articles
about “Sewanee: The University of the South.” That KKK social
club of General Forrest’s time rode in response to the chaotic social
and political threats against his people immediately following the War
Between the States and was only in operation a short while. Purposely
hidden from the current public conventional wisdom is the history of how
the original club’s riders galloped through the night because of
the fearfulness and lawlessness that the pervaded Southern society just
after the War. It was a development that has been natural for all peoples
in the history of mankind when faced with similar threats of collapsed
safety and order. It was reaction to the aggression of the politico/military
occupiers of the South, and not a purely racial inspiration or counterpoise.

A most recent example
of this expected human phenomenon occurred in New Orleans following the
havoc of Hurricane Katrina. Civil order broke down, our city police force
failed, and the National Guard was absent for too long when they were
most urgently needed. Our neighborhood citizens banded together here in
the Garden District during those dire circumstance and were left with
no option but the hiring of our own teams of elite, well armed, trained
and experienced mercenaries to protect our family homes from looting and
vandalism. When the tax dollar funded municipal and governmental safeguards
fail the citizenry, people will by instinct rely upon each other and their
combined independent means for protection and safety. What we had to do
here in New Orleans in 2005 in order to save our homes from criminal thieves
and hateful arsonists was no different than the survival measures taken
by Nathan Bedford Forrest and his band of Tennessee patriots after 1865.
Just as they did during the horrible postbellum turmoil following the
War Between the States, we here in Louisiana during the War of the Looters
found ourselves forced to find our own methods to “protect the weak,
the innocent, and the defenseless from the indignities, wrongs and outrages
of the lawless, the violent and the brutal…” Perhaps you saw
on the television news the total ruin we were facing at the time. Had
we relied on the authorities and public servants to solve our problems
and save our civilization, we would have been doomed by their failures,
ignorance, and complicity. (We paid our taxes in the expectation of service.
Do you think they will give us a tax credit for the vast expense we incurred
in hiring our on private military security force when they proved themselves
incapable? Dim are our hopes for that tax justice.) Our Nathan Bedford
Forrest is America’s best historical example of the inspiration
of self preservation and defense, urges which define the American struggle
as well as any, and that only saved the Garden District of New Orleans
from total destruction.

The news reports linking Sewanee, Tennessee, to the Klan injured the University
of the South with their worst inaccuracy. No distinction was made, as
educated and reading Southerners demand, between the first Ku Kluxers
of early Reconstruction and the latter ones who were wickedly inspired
by the Birth of a Nation movie which President Woodrow Wilson
screened in the White House. The brutal racial atrocities committed by
that latter KKK still horrify all good Americans, and the menace of them
is indelibly linked in our minds to the white robes and American flags
marched through Washington, D.C., with the United States Capitol visible
in the background.

The Communications
and Marketing officers there in Sewanee should immediately and aggressively
disavow any association between the University Mace and its inscription
in memory of General Nathan Bedford Forrest as having a connection with
the popular impression of what was the Ku Klux Klan. Decency, if not justice,
for Louise Claiborne-Armstrong makes this a required answer.

Neglecting this duty
is an abandonment of the need to educate those who are automatically prejudiced
against the meaning of “the South” in the title of the University
of the South, as well as against the diminished, but still surviving “South”
in the new “Sewanee: The University of the South.” The Nathan
Bedford Forrest so linked with the history of Sewanee, Tennessee, is not
dirtied by the sins of the 20th century KKK. If he had been, The University
of the South would not have led its Vice-Chancellor’s into All Saints’
Chapel for 32 years with a ceremonial relic which memorializes a favorite
General.

Leaving such injurious
impressions remaining uncorrected is akin to tacitly approving the claims
that the University of the South advocates a return to the antebellum
Cotton culture of the Old South just because it has not changed its most
visible vestige from antebellum thought and times, i.e. the legal title
of the University of the South, along with the fact the student body’s
composition is overwhelmingly near its historical levels of white Southerners
taking up the vast majority of seats in the classrooms, or in many cases,
all the seats. An additional vulnerability for trouble making is the juxtaposition
of the word “South” with the antebellum year 1858 within the
University Seal in the center of the Narthex and the resulting claims
that it is a cleverly disguised message of the same cultural intent.

When the propagandists
accuse as much one day, the University will need its historic preservationists
to stand with it on the front line of defense. It would be well advised
that before such a battle rages, the administration not continue alienating
those who can most help during those times of crisis. Giving due justice
to Louise Claiborne-Armstrong by repairing her gift will be the long over
due first step in the recruitment of strong allies.

The communications
message required is this: Nathan Bedford Forrest’s reputation is
redeemed by the spiritual unification of Louise Claiborne-Armstrong, the
University of the South, and the President of the Order of the Gownsmen.
It is a wrong and mean spirited crime against the triune grandeur of their
combined greatness to allow any more spreading of the ill intended notion
that the Mace in any way represents white racism.

Through the administration’s
delay in repairing the Mace, conveyed is the message that accepted with
merit there in Sewanee is the baser interpretation of the Mace’s
meaning. Allowing destructiveness and cultural violence to go uncorrected
on the Mountain is sending a very potent message to friend and foe alike
who take special interest in artistic expressions of regional identity.

The grave injustice
perpetrated against Louis Claiborne-Armstrong reflects ominously dangerous
tidings for the University of the South at the worst possible time. When
the sesquicentennial is celebrated and publicized beginning in 2007, why
would we want the brokenness of the Mace to lead every news stories about
the University? Is anybody up there in Sewanee sober enough to see what
peril lies in continuing the desecration of the Mace? When will recognition
be given to the error of letting the Mace continue as the focus of the
public’s attention on the University? The 150th anniversary parties
on the Domain of the University of the South should be a time of merriment
and not of mourning. The latter disappointment is all that we can expect
if Louise Claiborne-Armstrong remains debased, degraded, and devalued
by this ongoing injustice against her. Who doubts it?

By leaving the Mace
“broken,” employees of the University are making themselves
the target of the same accusations that were spewed in righteous anger
at Chancellor Gordon Gee at Vanderbilt during his illegal attempt to steal
the name “Confederate” off of the United Daughters of the
Confederacy’s Confederate Memorial Hall on the Peabody Campus.

How much insistence
will be required of the alumni that our alma mater must in all speed do
justice for Louis Claiborne-Armstrong and avoid being associated any longer
in the public’s mind with those who destroy what our forefathers
and birth mothers built for us and left behind for our benefit alone?
Sewanee has begun its tumble into the pit, and teetering on the edge,
it now can reach back for the hand that is offered in aid, or it can ignore
us and fall to the bottom of oblivion and there be buried under all the
subsequent corpses which will crash down in the future. Louis Claiborne-Armstrong’s
spirit cries out for justice, and by responding to her emergency, the
Sewanee of remembered nobility, chivalry, and honor can save itself.

Reading some related
portions of the reactions to the news stories about Lipman-Hearne, I am
struck by one particularly noxious attitude: “The South lost
the war, so get over it and move on!” Ah, yes, oh my, and how
the opportunities that one gives for explaining to the Southern youth
there in Sewanee how the enemy still operates against them.

The overt message
therein is that since the richer, more industrial North, with its larger
and better equipped army had defeated the agrarian South militarily, politically,
and economically, that it also claims a victory over our spirit and intellect.
We are told to no longer lament our loss and instead begin starting the
rejoicing over our having been defeated? They would have more luck shouting
at the wind to stop its blowing while thinking it will obey them than
of ever convincing us of the merits of their demands for our obedience.
We could maybe be sympathetic if our victor was of the decent sort, but
a people who tells the vanquished to enjoy ruination proves themselves
as nothing more than crass Visigoths of Greed.

Those people should
be studied closely by our Southern youth. Revealed to those who most need
to know will be that “moving on” demands the abandonment of
their inherited blood sense, the sensate gifts of native soil, and the
salvific sacrament of joining together in good company and free association
with other members of their own set. Being in Sewanee, Tennessee, while
living, breathing and studying within the penumbral glow of our Southern
antiquity and upholding those traditions handed down, is the rarest of
Southern virtues still remaining. On the Domain, the preservation of that
manifestly Southern culture which loved the students before they were
even born binds them to the founders and those undying promptings operative
in choosing Sewanee Mountain as the location for the University of the
South. Unification with those mystical currents still swirling there will
bring them to themselves and gird them for the battle unending against
the truculence of lesser sorts. The Southern youth know that there is
nothing worthy offered by the outsiders to “move on” to, for
our youth are now in mind, body and spirit where they are at their best.
Many of these have shown us that they already know this truth and are
willing to defend it.

The disgraceful treatment
of Louise Claiborne-Armstrong’s gift has exposed some of the now
more openly discussed ailments which have festered there in Sewanee. The
University of the South was founded based with the urgent need and intention
that Southern social unity could be strengthened by bringing the founding
class together on the Mountain and offering organized community and classroom
opportunities for the enjoying of the natural harmony of their oneness.
It was not an institution planned as a social experiment for the celebration
of differences or oddness; it was envisioned as a mountain top fortress
within which would be protected and strengthened that which was familiar
for the first families of the South and safe for their children.

Allowed or encouraged
contradictions to those ideals are disruptively destructive to the best
learning at the University of the South, and a “broken” Mace
proves the error that has been committed through the entertainment of
strange philosophies and self loathing practices.

Somewhere along the
way, the meaning of strength was perverted on the Mountain, and Louise
Claiborne-Armstrong became a victim of an overbearing insistence that
otherness was goodness and sameness was badness. That intolerant power
aimed its fury at the Mace, and the resulting injury is today our symbol
of what happened at the end of that better epoch during which objections
of the few were not used to punish the many.

But the lesson has
been learned. We are hearing encouraging news that among the students
there in Sewanee has started a new arising of regained consciousness which
beckons to the earlier days when society on the Mountain knew that its
strength lay in its proper order. They are enjoying and holding dear the
remaining semblance of their traditional organizations that bind them
to each other through a harmonious lifestyle which they understand by
unspoken instinct as good for them; it is the oldest instinct on the Mountain.
They are automatically brought together into their enclaves of kinship
and affiliation, some visible and some of necessity invisible, through
commonly held values fostered in their traditional family backgrounds,
college preparatory educations, and memberships in the enduring social
institutions back in their Southern hometowns. These are the students
who know how to have respect for authority when it proves itself respectable,
and the repaired Mace will instantly illicit from them much of what is
needed once they can see for themselves the Mace restored as one rejoined
piece as Louise Claiborne-Armstrong intended it to stay instead of its
current three separate scandalous ones.

The University of
the South has been blessed with the generous affection of some of the
grandest ladies who have ever lived in the South. Either by them, or in
their honor, or by their families’ recognition of the meaning of
Sewanee to them, wonderful gifts have been bestowed upon the University.
The Domain is graced by the names Manigault, Hodgson, Benedict, Guerry
and duPont.

Thanks to the generosity
of Charlotte Morris Manigault, we have St. Luke’s Hall and Manigault
Park; she is honored in the Narthex windows. Thanks to Frances Glen Potter
Hodgson, we have St. Luke’s Chapel; she is honored in the Narthex
windows. Thanks to Olivia Procter Benedict we have Benedict Hall; she
is honored in the Narthex windows. Thanks to Charlotte Patten Guerry we
have Guerry Hall and the Charlotte Guerry Tennis Courts; she is honored
in the Narthex windows. Thanks to Jessie Ball duPont, we are privileged
to carry her name on Jessie Ball duPont Library; she is honored in the
Narthex windows.

Thanks to Louise
Claiborne-Armstrong, we have a beautiful ceremonial processional Mace,
now world famous, that was used for 32 years. She is remembered by her
gift’s having “accidentally broken,” disappeared for
eight years, involuntarily “found,” placed in the Archives,
and even after alumni sent in their donations to fund the repairs, still
it remains “broken.”

If any of the structures,
facilities, or markers there in Sewanee that have the names Manigault,
Hodgson, Benedict, Guerry, or duPont attached to them were to “accidentally
break,” they would be repaired immediately without comment or notice.
If the historical windows in the Narthex were to “accidentally break,”
and the images of the five our six grand dames were damaged, they would
be repaired immediately with comment or notice.

Which gift from any
of these women or their extended families would remain “broken?”
None, of course. Why then, pray tell, does Louise Claiborne-Armstrong
receive a lessened degree of respect? Why the discrimination against her?
Why the intolerance, the injustice?

When will “the
Episcopal University” treat all its benefactresses with the same
respect? The time has come for the University to finally shake its reputation
as an exclusive bastion of white male privilege. The time has come to
prove that all women there in the Sewanee that claims itself a Mecca of
“inclusiveness” will be treated with the deference and acceptance
that their places of authority have earned them. The time has come for
every woman to be treated with the full equality that we owe, and the
time has come to give justice to Louise Claiborne-Armstrong.

There in Sewanee
a student can major in Woman’s Studies, join a local chapter of
the National Organization of Women, fight for a woman’s right not
to birth babies, and look up to the successful example of two women in
the powerful positions of Provost and Dean of the College. Last year’s
Valedictorian was a woman and our last three Rhodes Scholars were women.
Women students enjoy the advantages of being the majority gender of the
student body. For a University that is now as feminized as has become
the University of the South, utter outrage, shock and dismay descends
upon the beholder when they recognize the tragedy of how the one lady
who is fast becoming the name most associated with the University of the
South, our own fabulous Louise Claiborne-Armstrong, has been for nine
years shown nothing but contempt and scorn. We call all the women of the
University to stand in defiance of the sexist treatment one of their own
continues receiving at the overbearing hands of the old boy power structure
still stubbornly holding on to its last rung of masculine might there
in Sewanee. Join with us and demand justice for Louise Claiborne-Armstrong
and see to it that all women donors to the University of the South are
treated equally! Why should women now entrust those in Sewanee as the
receiver of their donations when so shabbily and discriminatorily has
been treated one of their finest sisters of the Domain?

It is too late to
give Louise Claiborne-Armstrong her place in the Narthex windows, but
the University can begin to offer a portion of what it owes her by finding
a tasteful and appropriate method of recognizing her contribution with
the same esteem that her sister donors are receiving. The first is, OBVIOUSLY,
to repair the very Mace she so lovingly had crafted just for us! Once
her gift is restored to its original condition and its value reclaimed
through the recovery of its integrity, the second offering of respect
will be its return to the President of the Order of Gownsmen for a revival
of the processional tradition that began on June 3, 1965. Beyond that,
a permanent display should be erected either in the lobby of Jessie Ball
duPont Library or the University Archives which commemorates the Mace’s
role in the history of the University of the South, a vivid role which
is getting more pronounced every day her gift is kept “broken,”
forsooth!

Rob, somehow, you
and I and my fellow donors to the Repair the Mace project are all together
being forced into enduring a discomfiting and inexplicable delay in seeing
the Mace rightly repaired. Apparent is a mysterious executive complicity
and acceptance of its degraded financial and cultural value. (Nonetheless,
its teaching value multiplies daily, surely!) Therefore, a new appraisal
of the relic by a skilled professional is expected. The Mace appraised
at $41,500 twenty one years ago, and we should know what it is worth now-
both in its currently impaired condition, and also at what would be the
value of a hypothetical, but inevitable, repaired condition. When those
two numbers are compared, we will no doubt learn that the University’s
failure at its role as a good steward of the Mace is costing more than
just a loss of reputation and alumni donor confidence.

Required for the
appraisal is someone who was intimate with the Mace before it "broke."
The original appraiser, Mrs. Taylor M. Watson, C.G.A., is the appropriate
choice. The expense of her services will be covered through newly designated
and restricted gifts to the University of the South. Officials can schedule
the inspection by calling her Chattanooga, Tennessee, office at phone
number (423) 267-0901.

It is a bitter thought
that dear Louise Claiborne-Armstrong, in all of her sweet generosity to
her brother’s alma mater, with Glory to God above, and in memory
of her father’s fearless captain of War, that she would not today
have the assurance that her gift to the University of the South has been
treated with the deference its grandness so deserves, and as correct justice
demands.

We are well taught
by the excellent and effective Social Justice Ministries of the Episcopal
Church that Reconciliation first requires Recognition, followed by Repentance,
and completed by Restitution.

The administration
there in Sewanee, and some members of the faculty as well, must soon recognize
the error of not repairing the Mace immediately upon its “accidentally
breaking” in 1997, and most recently of not repairing it in 2005
after alumni and friends sent in our donations for the Repair the Mace
project. If the ideological error can not be seen, then perhaps will be
recognized the public relations and financial error.

A proper repentance
would include an apology to those alumni who have been injured by what
they and their associates have been reading in the press for the last
nearly two years about what has been going on there in Sewanee. An apology
must also be extended to Louise Claiborne-Armstrong’s heir.

The only restitution
acceptable will be the performance of that most just act of radical hospitality
to the memory of Louise Claiborne-Armstrong and the good name of The University
of the South by those there in Sewanee: Repair the Mace, now.

What a shame that
helping those there in Sewanee to see the need to do the right thing is
now “radical.” In the better days of harmony, it would have
been unnecessary. Only once restitution is complete will we become reconciled
that Sewanee may once again, as in those better days, be a worthy caretaker
of donated memorials, artifacts, relics, and endowment cash flows.

But then again, who
could have ever imagined that something as antiquated and anachronistic
as the out of date soul of the University of the South would have been
allowed to live on in a world such as this? With all the attention that
has been directed toward Sewanee ever since the new name was revealed,
it is obvious that there really are people out there who abhor our very
existence. Attached to the end of this Manifesto, you will find a copy
of a document I have just come across which chronologically records the
news stories about the name change. Several of the quotations are searing
in their anger at the University of the South for being so Southern. Holy
Goodness, it sounds like Lipman-Hearne was not kidding!

We remain astonished,
as must the public relations office and the consultant, that two tiny
little dots of ink so carefully drawn [ :
] could drain so many countless barrels of hot ink into the publishers’
printing presses, could use up so many terabytes of digital capacity on
the Internet servers, and could fill so much bandwidth on the electric
Web.

No, on second thought,
none should be astonished at all by what happened after a stranger was
paid University money for converting the chartered and perpetual name
of the University of the South into a subtitle behind a punctuating colon.
The rivers of ink and teraflops of electrons were not only expected, but
were predictable by anyone who understands the mysterious essence of the
Domain as well as its most keen practitioners do. Evidently, that special
sensing of the Mountain has been missed by those who control too much
policy and too much money up there in Sewanee. In the not too distant
past, hiring a branding consultant to tell our story would have been anathematic.
It still is to those who count.

Besides pushing along
the furiously spinning wheels of intellectual commerce, we have all learned
the Lipman-Hearne dots had powers far beyond their manifest intention.
What a story we now have to tell about when the University of the South
agreed with “research that revealed the weaker the connection between
the University’s name and the South, the better.” We can tell
of how what they ended up getting instead of their version of “better”
was the Northern section’s getting a “better” understanding
of just how much of the South is still there in Sewanee (“Deliverance?”
He surely couldn’t have meant that the way beleaguered Episcopalians
took it!) and even how much of that version is still Confederate, have
mercy!

It is difficult to
capture the full irony of this turn of events, but one delightful ramification
has been that post April 7, 2004, the Lipman-Hearne version of the University
of the South released what is a near justice for Louise Claiborne-Armstrong,
our lovely. There is much still yet to be done for her, but the round
dots got things rolling, so to speak. To Lipman-Hearne we owe great gratitude,
and now, thanks to them and their enablers who work for the University
of the South, Sewanee is indeed finally “better” than at anytime
since the Mace was "lost" and disappeared in 1997.

Not only did the
new dotted punctuation have the power of tipping barrels and burning wires,
but it also brought fantasy into reality. Once finding themselves within
the pressing, squeezing vise clamp of

Sewanee—› : ‹—The
University of the South,

they accessed deep
within their combined being the Source only discoverable in those times
of extreme discomfort during unnatural calamity. They were caught in an
ever tightening clutch, the left half (i.e. leftist) “Sewanee”
and the right half (i.e. correct) “The University of the South.”
The handle was frightfully cranked harder and harder for a full year,
and stuck there for a seeming eternity, the struggling punctuation found
its true nature; its best use; its fate; its fame.

No longer keeping
its former shape as a tangible divisor within a misalignment of Geography
and Charter, our dear punctuation’s spirit took flight from its
prison bonds and released itself far out into the Ether where it could
learn unfettered the difference between Evil and Good. Once there, it
freely communed with the original pure Domainian spirits and basked in
the sharp brightness of Immortalis Est Sententia, and there became
Power.

Eagerly floating
back down upon the Mountain, inspiration swelled their intent, and they
were not the dots that first slipped the capture of the crushing pressure.
Behold a new royal magic carpet, flying through the rarified air looking
for good deeds to do, all the while knowing through the counsels of wise
Immortalis that the first deed needed be the undoing of a prior
dastardly doing. Onward the magic carpet flew straight into some “unknown”
room, lovingly wrapped itself around the three pieces of the Louise Claiborne-Armstrong
gift to The University of the South, liberated them from their shackled
obscurity, and then flew them straight into the eight years long awaiting
arms of the University Archivist. Finally, thanks to Lipman-Hearne, a
1997 promise was fulfilled and an “accidental” injustice half
righted!

The day of liberation
of our Mace from its “lost” confinement in the darkness of
mystery was the beginning of a glorious Jubilee celebration on the Mountain,
as Gownsmen and their Domainian supporters celebrated the near return
of respectful decency to the campus.

When the Mace is
repaired for good, not only will Louise Claiborne-Armstrong have received
the larger portion of the justice owed her by those who make their living
in Sewanee, Tennessee, but also will be redeemed the memory of Nathan
Bedford Forrest.

The sanctification
of Bedford began with Andrew Lytle’s biography of the General. If
you have not yet read it, you can obtain one in the University Supply
Store. Through Lytle’s presence on the Mountain, both while living
and temporarily sleeping in the grave, through his biography of Forrest,
through his editorship of the Sewanee Review, through his delivery of
A Christian University and the Word, through his teaching scores
of Sewanee gentlemen the better use of the English language, and through
his being the avatar of The University of the South’s headship of
the Southern literary tradition, Sewanee, Tennessee, can not escape the
memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his place in the word and in the
academic procession.

I have been invited
to consider a proposal by the Development Office fundraising staff for
my funding of an endowed Dunbar Scholars program. While I know that such
a contribution now to the Sewanee Call capital campaign would help you
mightily toward your financial goal, I have grave concerns about giving
any more money to the University of the South. Scholarship money just
frees up other money in the budget to spend on consultants who do great
damage to my alma mater. I know, as you must have been informed once you
accepted the promotion to your new position, that many alumni who otherwise
would feel warmth for their memories of Sewanee are now chilled by the
changes taking place there. Who would want to fund what Sewanee advisor
Mary Maples Dunn has in mind?

Her plan could not
have been any more eloquently and honestly stated, nor more clearly exposed
in its sinister and revising intent, than when she said, “In
20 years you won’t know the place.” Not with my money
will she!

Many others feel the same way. They love Sewanee in normal times, but
are caustically chagrined during these revelatory times over what they
are learning has been going on up there. If our misgivings are misplaced,
please have the Office of the Treasurer send me a detailed University
budget. Along with other alumni, I will audit it and determine if our
money is spent in the preservation and perpetuation of what was good at
the University of the South, or if it is funding the Mary Maples Dunn
initiative of the planned destruction of an Ideal. If the Treasurer does
not soon send me the report I request, it will be presumed that much within
it is wished to remain secret and hidden from donors. Why could that be?

Until I am given
some comfort that the Sewanee of legendary lore is being preserved instead
of “progressed” through the excuse that “change is good,
you know” (good for whom, exactly?), my Sewanee Call endowment gift
consideration should be considered cancelled.
When the Mace is appraised and repaired, my interest in becoming reacquainted
with needs that the University has during its Sewanee Call may mysteriously
revive. (Nonetheless, I wish you every personal success in your new position.
From what I hear, Sewanee is very lucky to have you there right now.)

Thank you for your
attention to this grievous matter, and thank you in advance for finally
giving the memory of the late Louise Claiborne-Armstrong the deference
that her marvelous generosity to the University of the South adjures.

Delightful will be the eventual recognition that the episode of the Mace’s
disgrace was only a temporary aberration in the function of that loom
which weaves the University of the South’s incredible story. The
corruption in the damaged cloth can be snipped out. The repairable gap
can then be filled with a newly woven piece in the truly original authentic
pattern. All can be again be well on the Mountain after that.

Louise Claiborne-Armstrong(Courtesy of the Apopka Historical Society)

But we should all
now be ever mindful: Sewanee’s loom runs on Spiritual energy, and
stopping our business for repairing avoidable errors just annoys the Source.

Sincerely,

Prescott N. Dunbar
Class of 1964, College of Arts and Sciences
Former Trustee of the University of the South, 1989-1991, Episcopal Diocese
of Louisiana
Member, Sewanee Trust for Historic Preservation

Post Script:

Next time a spokesman there in Sewanee discusses the new marketing name
"Sewanee: The University of the South" with a reporter from
the national media, especially an outlet with as far a world wide reach
and as powerful an impact as the New York Times, maybe he will
get the story correct: “Because of the familiarity, university
officials have essentially given in, said Joe Romano, a University of
the South spokesman. On its Web site, the institution is identified as
Sewanee in large type, with the University of the South in much smaller
type below." (August 11, 2005)

We did not ask for,
nor approve of the notion of the new name. It should be returned posthaste
to Chicago whence it came for a refund!!! Those fresh funds can be applied
to the Mace repair project, with the vast excess used in the erection
of an honorary monument to the example set for us all by Louise Claiborne-Armstrong;
the never ending usefulness of her magnificent gesture is forever upon
the Domain and on the Internet.

That an expensive
consultant from a far away distant region who understands nothing of the
feeling at the University of the South would be paid for contriving its
new marketing image specifically for the emotional benefit of non native
teenagers is akin to marketers of the best Bible thumping mid Alabama
town inviting casino operators to build there, and at the grand opening,
beheld by everyone is the revelation that their marketers are all gambling
junkies. The real Christians will eventually chase out the false ones.

Attachments:

1.
"In addition, a variety of campus [Sewanee] programs focus on 'privilege'
and these discussions increase awareness and change attitudes. The College
also started a new program, a weekend 'Diversity Retreat' where 25 students
are immersed in a variety of diversity issues including racism, sexual
orientation, gender, and class. The theme for the latest retreat was 'Privilege
and Prejudice.' Many courses also incorporate diversity into the curriculum
and this fosters meaningful dialogues around important, often controversial
issues." -Documenting Effective Educational Practice (Project DEEP),
from the 2003 National Survey of Student Engagement, Institute for Effective
Educational Practice, Bloomington, Indiana

2.
"...the cornerstone of racism: White Privilege. ...we were challenged
to do a personal audit of our language and actions and a church audit
of our institutional language and symbols, to see where white privilege
continues to rear its ugly head." -Linda Dietrich, "National
Church Presenters Challenge Diocesan Leaders To Combat Racism," The
East Tennessee Episcopalian, The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee,
Volume 20, No. 5, Oct./Nov. 2005 (newspaper of an owning diocese THE UNIVERSITY
OF THE SOUTH, a/k/a, The Episcopal University)

3.
"Two other videos led to discussion of power as an essential component
of racism, and the concept of 'white privilege' -the unearned power, economic,
political and social, that whites have as the dominant group in our society...
whites need to help other whites understand how unearned white privilege
hurts them... In the final exercise of the day, table groups were given
the task of describing how the 'perfect multicultural church' would go
about creating the widest possible welcome for all people. The first step,
many agreed, would be a deliberate intention by the leadership of the
congregation to be inclusive and an accompanying willingness to relinquish
power and control." - "Anti-Racism Dialogue Addresses Challenging
Issues of Race, Power and Privilege," The Net: Official Publication
of the Diocese of Southeast Florida, Volume 35, Number 6, December/January
2004-2005 (newspaper of an owning diocese THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH,
a/k/a, The Episcopal University)

4."Progressive education is a wholesale apostasy involving abandonment
of fundamental and long held beliefs about man and the world."
-Richard Weaver, quoted in Southern Paritsan, First Quarter,
2001

6.
http://www.sewaneemuseum.org/FM-Headlines-and-Derivatives.htm
NEWS HEADLINES AND DERIVATIVE CITATIONS
ABOUT“SEWANEE: THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH”

V. 1/21/ 06

(Total discovered
as of January 15, 2006- 112; story run time- 642 days.)

"The time will
come when they realize that whistling ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’
didn’t do them any good at all." –resident Domainian

1. Sewanee's Consultants
Say Heritage is Negative: University of the South examining its traditions,
front page investigative expose (“The plan also says marketing research
‘has revealed that the South can often raise negative associations
before it sparks positive ones, so the weaker its connection with the
University's name, the better.’ ”), Nashville Tennessean,
April 7, 2004

2. Clarification
Regarding Sewanee Naming Convention (“…worked to create an
integrated marketing and communications plan in order to support the University's
strategic goals for recruiting and fundraising, and to help raise the
profile of this institution nationally… We are NOT dropping The
University of the South from our name, and we are NOT moving away from
our Southern heritage. To do so would be misguided and disingenuous.”),
Sewanee E-News, April, 2004

3. Sewanee in the
Tennessean (“I sat in on several of the meetings… It was the
insiders who wanted to play down the southern image.”), Old Fishing
Hat blog, April 7, 2004

4. On Changing School's
Name (“I never had to deal with anything like this. When I came
here, I was very, very, very shocked at seeing the Confederate flag.”),
Nashville Tennessean, April 7, 2004

5. Order of Gownsmen
Resolution: The only proper usage of the University's name (“ ‘Sewanee:
The University of the South’ detracts from the official title.”),
April 7, 2004

6. Nashville's Fox17
Television News Story (investigative expose of Lipman-Hearne 2004 Integrated
report and the “Sewanee: The University of the South” name
change scandal), reporter Sky Arnold, evening news, April 15, 2004

8. VC Flags Down
the Flags: Administration says "No" to flags despite OG request
(“…some voiced concerns about the possibility that some students
would be offended by the presence of the Confederate battle flag emblem
in a few of the state flags.”), Sewanee Purple, April 21, 2004

9. The Name: Identity
Crisis; Identity Restructuring? Identity Theft?: What’s in a Name?,
front page investigative expose and “An Interview with Joe Romano”
(“Was Lipman-Hearne a part of Sewanee’s original drive to
get into the [U.S. News and World Report] Top 25? When was Lipman-Hearne
first hired? Can you provide me with all of their previous consulting
reports? If not, why not? Are they secret? Who paid for them?”),
Sewanee Purple, April 21, 2004

10. Final Opinions,
Letters to the Editor, Section C, a Polk and a Chitty respond to the name
change (“You really need to hurry up and be more careful;”
“It is foolish and shortsighted to pretend the past did not exist.”),
Sewanee Purple, April 21, 2004

11. South's Gonna
Do It Again- Apologize (“A ‘task force’ of educators
and administrators - aided by outside consultants -painstakingly researched
and deliberated to decide that a lot of potential students have negative
feelings about the South.”), Tullahoma News, April 21, 2004; Tyree’s
Tyrades blog, week of May 2, 2004

12. Dubious Endeavor,
Letter to the Editor (“Do Sewanee-lovers really want to renounce
its time-embossed name for some dubious new branding?”), Sewanee
Mountain Messenger, April 22, 2004

13. A Visitor On
The Hunley, History And The University Of The South, Letter to the Editor
(“When history is a poison… Both Gorgas gentlemen are included
in the infamous stained glass windows in All Saints’ Chapel and
these have recently been labeled as a ‘negative image’ by
off-the-Mountain marketing consultants.”), Charleston Mercury, April
29, 2004

14. Sewanee Gets
Politically Corrected (“ ‘In 20 years you won’t know
the place,’ Dunn gushed to Sewanee’s Board of Trustees in
1998. She outlined for them exactly what she had in mind… ‘There
is no major or minor in women’s studies, or in African American
Studies…’ ”), Campus Report Online, Accuracy in Academia,
May 3, 2004

16. University of
the South Marketing Plan Stirs Complaints (“A Chicago marketing
consultant suggested that the school downplay its ‘Southern’
identity because it has negative connotations for some prospective students.
…said administrators trying to get the campus recognized in national
rankings of small liberal arts colleges have decided that ‘Southern
heritage is not a good thing. If you want to get back into the [U.S. News
and World Report] Top 25, you get rid of that.’ ”), Associated
Press, May 12, 2004

17. A Fairbanks and
an Alumnus (C'85) respond to the Sewanee Identity Crisis, Letters to the
Editor (“…has not contacted me… to notify us that we
are supposed to be ashamed of our associations with the South;”
“Some years ago I stopped giving money to Sewanee.”), Sewanee
Purple, May 14, 2004

18. University of
the South Wrestles with Its Identity (“…marketing study which
recommends the school seek a more diverse undergraduate student body by…
weakening ‘negative associations’ with the South.”),
The Living Church, May 16, 2004

19. Sewanee Gets
New Dean and Copes with Name Change (“It's all about political correctness.
…you will find that the university now has a Women’s Studies
Department.”), Virtue Online, May 19, 2004

21. Name Change Explained
- Early Version Referred to South's Troubled History (“[Romano]
added that the study was geared to provide input on what might make the
school more attractive to out-of-state students who know little about
the university.”), Winchester Herald-Chronicle, May 24, 2004

22. The University
of the S**th (“Craven administrators also deleted any mention of
the University’s founder from its catalog because of his Confederate
connection… The [Chicago] marketing study warned against the word
‘South’ in the University’s name…”), Lew
Rockwell Online, May 28, 2004

23. Save Sewanee,
Letters to the Editors (“It is with dismay, but not surprise, that
I read of… a marketing study to define its place in modern academia;”
“The problem is that if we will lie about one thing, we lie about
anything.”), Living Church, May 30, 2004

24. Clarification:
Sewanee Forever University of the South (new name excused by SEWANEE/The
University of the South 1990 "word mark"), Cross and Crozier,
Diocese of Tennessee, May-June, 2004

25. Talk about Your
Speech Codes (“In Sewanee, TN, the PC police want the University
of the South to change its name!”), Campus Leadership Program Online,
June 13, 2004

26. The University
of the South Decides to Change Name! Heads F****** Explode! (“This
just in, the University of the South, founded a year before the Civil
War started, blown the f**** ** by Union Forces, then rebuilt as a kick
*** party school has decided to, **** ******* ***** ****, change its name
to ‘Sewanee: The University of the South’ causing hundreds
of southern young white students to s*** themselves. …The [consulting]
firm… was brought in last winter to help the University diversify
its student body, 8% of which consists of minorities.”), Blah F******
Blah blog, June 23, 2004

27. “Sewanee:
The University of the South” (“The hot button for some folks
has been our decision to be more consistent in referring to the University,
in communications with outside audiences as Sewanee: The University of
the South. For over a decade, the main logo for the University has combined
the two names by which it is will known, and the group that developed
the marketing plan committed to continuing and expanding that approach.”),
Vice Chancellor's Corner, Sewanee Magazine, Summer, 2004

28. Sewanee Settles
on New, Longer Name (“Confused? Apparently prospective students,
parents, and alumni are too… If that new name happened to de-emphasize
the university's Southern roots, that wouldn’t be a bad thing, the
consultants said. The institution's rural location and name conjure up
negative perceptions among some would-be applicants- especially members
of minority groups.”), Chronicle of Higher Education, June 18, 2004

29. The University
of the _ _ _ _ , front page investigative expose (“One of the last
old-school holdouts in the increasingly politically correct world of higher
education is succumbing to this academic trend…”), Campus
Report, Volume XIX, Number 5, July-August, 2004

30. Vanderbilt Ranks
18th Among Top U.S. Schools (“The school was listed as ‘Sewanee
— University of the South,’ a new arrangement that, by emphasizing
the informal name over the formal one, has upset some alumni.”),
Nashville Tennessean, August 20, 2004

31. South Going Left?
(“Sewanee: The University of the South... this is a textbook case
of the problems with the multicultural movement.”), Collegiate Network,
August 20, 2004

33. Extremely P.
C. Makeover at W&L (“The University of the South at Sewanee,
Tennessee, and Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., are the
latest casualties of politically correct remodeling. The former school
now lists itself in college guides as Sewanee: The University of the South,
largely on the advice of a Chicago-based marketing firm.”), Campus
Report Online, September 3, 2004

34. Sewanee: the
(former) University of the South (“…as a cautionary tale of
‘consultants run amok at traditional Southern universities, trying
to make them more acceptable to Northerners and minorities, and how it
can backfire badly!… This is a warning [to Washington and Lee]…
about how mad they will make alumni donors if they monkey with a good
thing just for marketing and branding.’ ”), Trident On-Line,
The Independent Student Newspaper at Washington and Lee University, September
9, 2004

35. Print version
of the Trident's “Sewanee: the (former) University of the South”
article (includes photo of airbrushed-out All Saints' Confederate battle
flag in fundraising brochure), September 9, 2004

36. The Un-University
of the Non-South, Letter to the Editor of the Sewanee Purple (“Yankees
have an inherent and un-quenchable thirst to dominate… If your Yankee
marketing consultants had been more interested in promoting the truth
about your university, instead of manipulating your identity and misrepresenting
who you are, they would have reflected what the best people always say
about Sewanee. Everyone knows that Sewanee is THE UNIVERSITY OF THE OLD
SOUTH…”), Southern Heritage News and Views Online, September
24, 2004

37. Get the Name
Right!, Letter to the Editor (“On January 6, 1858, the State of
Tennessee issued the corporate charter: ‘...in fact and in name,
by the name of THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, and by that name shall have
perpetual succession…’ ‘Sewanee: The University of the
South’ is a marketing slogan proposed by an outside consultant and
adopted by the University's public relations office in the year 2004…
[the] Order of Gownsmen… recently passed a resolution demanding
the abandonment of this new name…”), DioLog, News of the Episcopal
Church in North and Middle Georgia, Diocese of Atlanta, September-October,
2004

38. An Open Letter
Concerning the University Mace, Letter to the Editor (“…the
administration appears intent on pressing forward with its use of Lipman
Hearne's bastardization… Particularly troubling, in light of its
high monetary value, is the disappearance of the University's processional
mace, given to the University of the South and dedicated to the memory
of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.”), Sewanee Purple, first issue,
Advent Semester, 2004

39. Ethnic Cleansing
of Dixie (“The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, is
under PC pressure to change its 130+ year-old name [147 years in 2004]
to something more yankee friendly.”), Georgia Heritage Coalition
Online, November 17, 2004

40. AWAY DOWN SOUTH:
A History of Southern Identity, new book (“...negative associations
for prospective students... In response, officials announced the school
would henceforth be known as ‘Sewanee: The University of the South.’
”), Dr. James C. Cobb, 2005

41. Symbols of the
Confederacy: Pride or Prejudice? (“The University of the South in
Sewanee, Tenn., conducted a marketing study that suggested the private
liberal arts school divorce itself somewhat from its connection to Southern
heritage, including a prominent historical marker for a building known
as ‘Rebel's Rest.’ ”), Nashville Tennessean, January
6, 2005

42. “Sewanee,
The University of the South” (“Recently the institution has
begun combining its two names and bills itself as ‘Sewanee: The
University of the South.’ ”), Wikipedia nline, January 26,
2005

43. Graphic Identity
Standards Manual for Sewanee: The University of the South (Section 5.1-
“So, for extended audiences unfamiliar with the institution, the
naming convention ‘Sewanee: The University of the South’ should
be used on a first reference. Subsequent references may be to ‘Sewanee’
or ‘the University.’ This convention should not be used for
those familiar with the University. Appropriate use of this convention
is for admissions publications. An inappropriate use would be in alumni
publications or those intended for the community.”), February, 2005

2. “Sewanee:
The University of the South” printed on introductory page
headings of College of Arts and Sciences Catalog and Announcements,
2005-2006

3. The Art
Gallery announcement card from “SEWANEE; The University of
the South, Sewanee, Tennessee,” February, 2005

4. Admissions
letter to Mimi: “Congratulations! I am delighted to report
that the Committee on Admission has decided to offer you admission
to Sewanee: The University of the South for the fall term of 2005,”
circa March 18, 2005 (Mimi et al are not “an extended audience
unfamiliar with the University.”)

5. “Sewanee
Launches Capital Campaign” press release in The Episcopal
Church in Georgia, Vol. 70, No. 8, circa April, 2005- “Sewanee:
The University of the South formally launched a $180 million capital
campaign, its most ambitious…”

6. “Using
the F-Word: Perceiving Feminism in Our Generation,” Sewanee:
The University of the South, Bairnwick Women’s Center, September
2005

7. “Tennessee-
Sewanee: The University of the South” listing from Chaplain’s
Office in College Services Directory, Living Church, September 25,
2005

8. “Welcome
to Sewanee: The University of the South” in Mountain Life,
An Introduction to the Student Life and Faces of the Class of 2009,
August, 2005

9. E-mail signature
to an alumnus from “Dean of the College, Sewanee: The University
of the South,” September 12, 2005

10. “Sewanee:
The University of the South” in alumni page of www.sewanee.edu,
and “Welcome to Sewanee: The University of the South”
on alumni page webcam, October 25, 2005

11. The Art
Gallery announcement card from “SEWANEE: The University of
the South, Sewanee, Tennessee,” December, 2005

12. “Best
Wishes from Sewanee: The University of the South,” Christmas
Card, December 2005

13. "Martin
Luther King Feast Day," e-mail announcement from "Director
of Communications and Church Relations, School of Theology, Sewanee:
The University of the South," January 11, 2006

44. Colleges Suffer Identity Crisis, front page investigative expose (“The
absence of the famed University Mace, emblazoned with the insignia of
the Confederacy... Sewanee: University of the South.”) Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
February 13, 2005; released Saturday, February 12, 2005, on the 29th anniversary
of the death of Louise Claiborne-Armstrong; included 1984 photograph of
the Mace

47. Battle Over the
Past Rages on in an Evolving South (“University of the South...are
downplaying old Confederate-era rituals and even the word ‘South’…”),
Christian Science Monitor Online, February 24, 2005

49. Stupid, Stupid
Sewanee (“I shudder at the mention of Sewanee in this article about
the assault on Southern culture (often from within) -and the woeful acquiescence
of many vanguard institutions, like the University of the South.”),
Moot Life blog, February 24, 2005

50. Southern Universities
Shed Their Stereotypes (“...Sewanee: The University of the South...
choosing to remove Confederate symbols and Southern traditions...”),
Vanderbilt Hustler Online, February 28, 2005

52. University of
the South (“Every few years, with the influx of a new group of students,
colleges in the South face this dilemma.”), Ketty Ket blog, February
28, 2005

53. Don't Tell It
on the Mountain: How politically correct administrators are destroying
the University of the South, front cover investigative expose (“Sometime
in 1997, the University's Mace...disappeared.”), Southern Partisan,
Volume XXIV, No 2, February, 2005

54. Thoughts Unspoken:
The University of the South (“The University's higher powers changed
the name of our school without listening to our input- they did it in
the name of progress and diversification.”), Sewanee Purple, Vol.
CLXXXIV, No. 3, March 5, 2005

55. Colleges Revisit
Race in History (“At Sewanee: The University of the South, Confederate
flags and memorabilia are disappearing from its campus, and a revamped
logo features its official name, ‘The University of the South,’
in smaller lettering.”), Daily Tar Heel Online, March 9, 2005

56. CSA Today- Virginia
(“...following the example of the University of the South... Washington
and Lee as hired... a PR firm to help improve its listing in U.S. News
and World Report.”), Southern Partisan, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, April,
2005

57. In Sewanee-Related
News (“…apparently there are those who worry that the school's
association with the South is somehow tarnishing its image… I agree
the school has some potential marketing issues, namely its homogeneity.
Sewanee’s definitely a school for the progeny of wealthy, white,
Southern gentry… It's like they were out to prove that Sewanee has
a racist image...”), Jane Keeler blog, April 26, 2005

58. Guestbook Re
Sewanee (#255- “However, in my experience people who… actually
usual do hate. Fair or not, I have the same image of any school that is
so proud of its southern nature that it puts the word ‘South’
in the title. …every time I heard University of the South, I pictured
plantations and all that entails.” #257- “I would argue that
the South as a whole is probably one of the most hateful and racist regions
of the entire United States… It is interesting when I hear the University
of the South... I also picture a bunch of rich white people…”),
Jane Keeler blog, April 28-29, 2005

59. DuBose at Sewanee
(“ We do not forever want new things; we want the art of keeping
things forever new.” –Rev. Dr. William Porcher DuBose, 1911;
“Jesus, You are the same yesterday, today, and forever. Teach the
Board of Regents how to pray as You prayed, drawing breath and strength
and life from God.”), Lent and Beyond blog, May 1, 2005

60. Heads Up (“The
university is being snarky about marketing and after we sell our current
stock with the Seal, etc, we will not be allowed to order more.”
Comments section- “Sudden ugly realization: This has to do with
their name bull**it, doesn't it? This whole thing where ‘Sewanee’
is being substituted for the actual name of the college? I bet I'm right-
growls.”), Girls and Boys of Sewanee blog, May 13, 2005

61. Valedictory Address
at The University of the South, Katharine Wilkinson, (“And now we’ve
picked up a colon that leaves us with three difficult choices! What’s
the deal with all these names, and why can’t we just keep things
simple?”), Sewanee Online, May 15, 2005

62. Sewanee Financed
by Slavery?, link to Washington Post Online article “The Myth of
the Wicked Slave Trader” (“Deyle seems to relish naming the
big slave dealers and even informing us that so distinguished a Southern
institution as the University of the South at Sewanee, Tenn., was, at
the outset, substantially financed by slave-trading fortunes.”),
Blog Blog Wolf Wolf blog, May 26, 2005

63. Help Needed for
University of the South Name Change, Notices from Around the Confederation
(“...has been outed for changing its name to ‘Sewanee: The
University of the South’ ...and for Confederate reminders to disappear...
most famously the University Mace...”), Confederate Veteran, Volume
63, No. 2, May/June 2005

64. The 'New South'
Scorns an Old Mace (“It is interesting therefore, that the mace
of the University of the South has been the center of one of the scandals
of the age of political correctness... the PC crowd lusts for the destruction
of all tradition...” Comments section- “…since it is
an Episcopal institution it comes as no great surprise that they should
abandon tradition;” “…the University of the South should
not deny its Confederate connections in an underhanded way. It should
do so outright, with great fanfare and to the sound of trumpets. The Confederacy
was an evil institution. It was racist, enforced slavery… and lacked
all honour;” “You people who complain about Sewanee's Confederates
need to remember that there are plenty of places in Yankeeland where you
can go to have your infantile cry-baby sensibilites protected and coddled,
even in ghettos like scalawag Vanderbilt in Nashville or carpetbagger
Emory in Atlanta;” “…the cure will be even more multicultural
diversity. Students must learn to appreciated different cultures, not
fight against them.”), Andrew Cusack blog, July 10, 2005

65. More PC Erasures
of Southern Tradition, link to Andrew Cusack Sewanee Mace story (“Another
attempt to erase Confederates and our traditions.”), The Old Dominion
blog, July 15, 2005

66. Partisan Letters
(“the Mace... as good a story as the Vanderbilt/UDC lawsuit...;”
“…article struck a nerve and enraged me about the situation
at The University of the South.”), Southern Partisan, Volume XXIV,
No. 4, July, 2005

67. To Woo Students,
Colleges Choose Names That Sell (“Because of the familiarity, university
officials have essentially given in, said Joe Romano, a University of
the South spokesman. On its Web site, the institution is identified as
Sewanee in large type, with the University of the South in much smaller
type below.”), New York Times, August 11, 2005

68. More Problems
at Sewanee (“Here is the course description for the new ‘cross-dressing’
class at Sewanee…. Note that the teacher of this course, Rita Kipp,
is the Dean of the College. Better think twice about sending your kids
to this ‘Episcopal Institution.’ ” [i.e. “Sewanee:
The Episcopal University”]), Romans 12:2 blog, September 1, 2005

69. The Controversy
over the University Seal (“At the beginning of the year, the University
published a graphic identity manual in order to refine and formalize the
appearance of Sewanee documents such as letterheads and brochures.”),
Sewanee Purple, September 23, 2005

71. Blog Subtitle
(“A kid from the South, The University of: Sewanee... or whatever
it is now.”), The Southern Liberal blog, October 5, 2005

72. Keep My Eyes
from Watching What Is Worthless (“…I dreamed of visiting the
National Cathedral, or to go below the Mason-Dixon Line, and see the University
of the South at Sewanee… I also visited Sewanee on one of my very
infrequent trips to the South, but it came too late. Both institutions
that had filled me with hope and longing for the Incarnation of the Kingdom
of God here on Earth, which Christ promised in the Lord’s Prayer…
had apostatized- the University of the South had as many ‘womynpriests’
as any other heretical academy of Untruth while the ‘National Cathedral’
was more interested in ‘mazes’ on the Cathedral floor, and
tours ‘guiding one through the mazes,’ than Truth, with a
Capital ‘T.’ ”) The White Christ blog, October 9, 2005

73. In Desire to
Grow, Colleges in South Battle With Roots, front page investigative expose
(“Then, in 1997, the mace, which was carried by the president of
the Order of Gownsmen at academic processions, vanished… About 30
alumni then offered to pay for repairing the mace, but the university
declined their gift.”), New York Times, November 30, 2005

74. Social Justice
Archives, link to New York Times Article, Anti-Racism Net, November 30,
2005

75. Political Correctness
at University of the South (“Submission to contemporary prejudice
and political correctness is seen by many college executives as necessary
for achieving so-called ‘diverse’ enrollments, i.e. student
bodies featuring significant percentages of members of designated victims’
groups, and national reputation.”), Never Yet Melted blog, November
30, 2005

76. Memory on the
Sewanee Campus (“And for those of you interested in these kinds
of issues, the spring's going to be busy- it will bring the report by
Brown University's Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, more debate
on naming Sewanee and related issues of the memory of the Civil War on
that campus, and further discussion of UNC's acknowledgement of its connections
to slavery.”), Concurring Opinions blog, November 30, 2005

77. Sewanee (“University
officials think it's time to distance itself from a past that includes
ties to the Confederacy and may play a part in the low minority attendance
[4% African-American, 2% Hispanic, 2% Asian-American].”), Ablogistan
blog, November 30, 2005

78. Southern Pride,
Comments (“America's South is losing its regional distinctiveness
by progress, the PC crowd and appeasement of minorities.”), Pith
in the Wind, Nashville Scene weblog, November 30, 2005

79. Free Market Winning
the Civil War, link to New York Times article, Big Tent blog, November
30, 2005

80. University of
the South (“Colleges like Sewanee are attempting to distance themselves
from their Confederate pasts to appeal to current students but some alumni
feel that their alma maters are slighting the institutions' histories.”),
Chronicle of Philantropy, November 30, 2005

81. New York State
of Mind, link to New York Times article (“In non-news, some people
in the South still hate us and don’t want us at their universities.
But they still love the Confederate flag and mediocre wealthy white students.”),
Feministe blog, November 30,2005

82. The “Apple”
Calling the Kettle Black (“The second article is about how southern
schools, namely Sewanee, are laboring under the residual stigma associated
with the Civil War. …the southern schools who are attempting to
cover up the ugly realities of their past should take some tips from New
York.”), Snakebelly Low blog, November 30, 2005

83. The University
Of The South - History And Culture Betrayed, Comments section (“…I
do not think that it would be inappropriate for a Christian institution
to remove the Confederate battle flag from its insignia and consecrated
spaces… If the Confederate battle flag is a scandal to some, then
it has to go, whatever its associations for any particular person or people;”
“Nor particularly, should we dishonor either that history or those
men by kow-towing to false PC agendas about inclusion/exclusion rubbish;”
“My older daughter… left [Sewanee] because of the terrible
social atmosphere up on the mountain. Undergraduates are overwhelmingly
members of fraternities and sororities…;” “My Civil
War professor, a native of Brooklyn, was fond of likening the Confederacy
to Nazi Germany.”) Drell’s Descants blog, November 30, 2005

84. The Competition
between Universities for Students Is Fierce (“So why am I thinking
that certain schools in the South will ultimately lose this battle? …when
are you going to realize that saying the Confederate flag is a symbol
of Southern pride is tantamount to saying that the swastika is ‘just’
a Buddhist religious icon? …all you're doing is reinforcing the
aura of racism and prejudice that your alma mater is trying so desperately
to dispel;” Comments section- “…you also have to make
the place more appealing to prospective students, or else that market
will dry up. Ultimately, the new student end has to win, or else you're
just Red Neck University with a small student body of dedicated racists...;”
“But, when you really think about it, do the schools even WANT their
alums' money if it's going to have strings attached, like, ‘Toward
the tuition of the most qualified WHITE students, only?’ Note how
they were also trying to disassociate themselves from the names of prominent
racists.”), Kethylia Duuk'Tarquith Live Journal blog, November 30,
2005

85. Sewanee E-News
Special Edition ("Today’s story in the New York Times brings
even broader coverage of the University’s efforts to weave together
Sewanee’s rich heritage of history and tradition with our ongoing
work to attract and serve well outstanding students nationally and internationally…
We have already heard from several alumni and friends about today's article.
Some have been critical, but many believe… that this can lead to
wider recognition and appreciation of the University.”), Sewanee
E-News, November 30, 2005

86. New York Times
article post, Comments section (“The ideology of revisionism, and
the ignoble tactics it employed, destroyed the Episcopal Church. The faculty
at Sewanee are people of the same persuasion. Left unchallenged they will
gut the traditions and purpose of a fine institution;” “…this
just seems like another lingering post Civil War Reconstruction dispute,
with the exception that this particular ‘reconstruction’ is
being imposed from within, rather than from without. Some of the traditions
some of the alumni are trying to uphold seem odious to me;” “Ought
we hide our history and heritage? Ought we demean our ancestors due to
latter-day revisionists? Ought we concede the field to those who despise
what we stand for?”), Titusonenine blog, December 1, 2005

87. Breaking News,
link to New York Times article, History News Network Online, December
1, 2005

88. New York Times
article post, Comments section (“Simple- stop giving money to alma
maters that no longer properly respect your viewpoint. It might even convey
the message that they who have the gold makes the rules, not the left-wingnuts
who have infiltrated the entire educational system of our country, in
the guise of ‘diversity,’ equal opportunity, affirmative action,
etc., etc.”), American Renaissance, December 1, 2005

89. Confederate Flag
Shouldn’t Symbolize Southern Pride (A story in yesterday's New York
Times… discussed some schools' struggles with how to maintain symbols
of their Southern heritage (i.e., Confederate insignia) while drawing
students from the whole country. What doesn't occur to many of the alumni
of Southern universities quoted in the article is that maybe those outsiders
who are repulsed by the rebel flag have a point… Those schools that
fly the stars and bars [battle flag] or have statues of Confederate generals
do so at the expense of repelling students of different races and points
of view…”), Kentucky Kernel Online, December 1, 2005

90. Sewanee: The
University of Anything-but-the-South! (“Some alumni chafed as these
traditions were relaxed, and many became alarmed as objects they held
dear were removed to the archives or disappeared altogether.”),
Whitehall blog, December 1, 2005

91. I’ll Take
My Stand (“Unfortunately, Sewanee, by denying its history and its
identity, is buying into Neil Young’s characterization of the South.
Instead, Sewanee should assume its place as the conscience of the South,
the place where issues of Southern identity are explored… [Mecham
says] you should take a stand against things that are offensive both to
prospective students and people who are the heart and soul of Sewanee.
Huh? Obviously, things that are offensive to everyone will be eliminated…
The mace should be carried…”), Solomon’s Compromise
blog, December 1, 2005 I

92. Leave ‘em
in the Lurch (“…but [I] recoil when I hear suggestions that
the black gowns students in the Order of the Gownsmen have traditionally
worn to class are symbols of ‘patriarchy’ or some other nebulous,
sinister system of white, male power.”), Solomon’s Compromise
blog, December 1, 2005

93. Article on Sewanee in the New York Times, Comments section (“Damn....
it seems half of all I have talked to like this article, the other half
want to drive up to NY and educate them why New Yorkers should not come
to Sewanee at all;” “And Smith's ‘misunderstanding’
is bull***t. He's one of the Sewanee Angels who rather deliberately broke
and hid the mace. …[we] both agree that the article is certainly
not good press for the University.”), Outlaw Sophist blog, November
30 – December 1, 2005

94. A Sewanee for
the 21st Century (“…at the end of the Civil War, a defeated
Southern white elite retreated to that east Tennessee sojourn to perpetuate
a vision of the good old South into a era when its values were surpassed…
If you're at Sewanee, you may have to rethink the whole foundation of
the institution.”), Cliopatira: A Group Blog, December 1, 2005

95. 8.5% Non-White
( “I’m amazed Sewanee College managed more than a quarter
of that. …which tells you more about the region’s reputation
post-1964 than post-1864.”), Jusiper blog, December 1, 2005

96. Sewanee (“…I
understand what the administration is trying to do, but I also believe
that we need to own who we are and not apologize for it. We are a Southern
school, we are Episcopalian… A couple of years ago I felt that the
university was in an identity crisis, I think its student decline and
morale was a result of that crisis.”) Thoughts from Seminary blog,
December 1, 2005

97. Southern College
Culture (“It's common knowledge that most Confederate symbols we
see around now-adays were instituted during the 60's as a response the
civil rights movement... My question is: Why did you bring an African-American
to a racist-faith chapel? …There should still be places where only
privileged white males from the surrounding counties can go to learn to
read, write, and speak with new world pomposity. Where else will people
go to be indoctrinated into the unique southern culture combination that
deftly mixes extreme injustice to African-Americans, with the nearly identical
exploitation of poor whites, adds a touch of the revisionist mannerisms
that are the foundation of any nouveau riche aristocracy, and then gently
blends it into a froth using the icy slush of forced, insincere politeness.
I believe Southern Gentleman-ship is a complex course of study that is
best learned in an environment of immersion. …my ancestors were
first slaves then free-blacks… It’s not going to help anyone
to have kids from all over coming to these places. The alumni don’t
want them and the kids don’t want to come. Why are you so hell bent
of getting ‘others’ to attend these schools? I suggest you
return to a focus on recruiting your traditional student body base: rich,
local white boys who will learn the tried and true ways of the past…
I believe they will support you generously if you give them a place to
call home.”), Reality Speaks blog, December 1, 2005

98. What’s
Way Down South? Excellent Universities! (“ ‘Being in the South
Holds Back Southern Universities.’ That could have been the headline
of a November 30th article in The New York Times… This is not to
say that Southern campuses are immune from the need to confront the past,
especially slavery.”) Think South blog, December 1, 2005

99. There’s
a lot of Ridiculousness in this Article (“I have very little time
for Southern pride, and none at all for Confederacy-fetishism. One can
only hope that these weirdos eventually rejoin America in the 21st century.”
) Patsy Bluth blog, December 1, 2005

100. Snowbound Ripostes:
Sewanee and the October Revolution (“If Forrest were, for example,
a Sewanee alum, one might be able to argue a reason for the mace to remain
prominent in school functions. However, I can see no reason to keep the
thing around.”), Jane Keeler blog, December 2, 2005

101. Alumni Say the
Darnedest Things (“Anxious to shed their school's regional image,
administrators at the University of the South have begun to look askance
at their campus's abundance of Lost Cause associations- which include
a guest house named ‘Rebel’s Rest,’ a UDC monument to
Confederate General (and professor) Edmund Kirby-Smith, and a ceremonial
baton dedicated to KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest.”), Hiram
Hoover blog, December 2, 2005

102. Sewanee in the
News (“…a New York Times story revolving around the culture
and traditions among southern universities.”), Pattern Recognition
blog, December 3, 2005

103. Alma Mater (“…suffice
to say that this card-carrying, born-and-bred Yankee has been more than
a bit disturbed in years past with the decline of traditions of the University
(i.e., the loss of the dress code, the fall by the wayside of the Order
of the Gownsmen), but this article on the ‘white-washing’
(no pun intended) of the history of the University has sealed the fate
on all future charitable and planned giving on my part.”), All Along
the Shinscot blog, December 4, 2005

104. Southern Universities
(“The article deals with the University of the South (Sewanee) and
its move from a Southern/Confederate school to a more national institution.
The things they've changed seem rather obvious and acceptable, like removing
the baton of the Confederate general who founded the KKK, etc.”),
Thoughts, Rants, and Musings blog, December 4, 2005

105. [University
of Richmond] Is Not Alone (“…Sewanee University is having
their problems… a small liberal arts university in Tennessee that
has long-standing southern roots. In an effort to become a more national
school and to diversify its student body (only 4.5% of Sewanee students
are black), they are offending and alienating a lot of alumni. …Sewanee
and the aforementioned schools are weeding out traditions that stem from
the Confederacy since many associate it with offensive connotations.”),
My Musings on Education in the News blog, December 6, 2005

106. Some Colleges
Obscuring Southern Roots for National Appeal (“The article focuses
primarily on Sewanee: The University of the South, formerly just University
of the South, which is based in Tennessee.”), There’s Nothing
to Do Here! blog, December 6, 2005

107. Monument Law
(“And people are talking more about removing monuments from parks
or renaming them (such as the Nathan Bedford Forrest Park in Memphis).
Sewanee: The University of South is going through something like this
right now.”), Concurring Opinions, December 12, 2005

108. Deconstructing
Tradition: University of the South supporters say political correctness
destroying heritage, front page investigative expose (“The controversy
was blown wide open last year [2004] when the Chicago consulting firm
Limpan-Hearne issued a marketing report commissioned by the school…
‘the South can prompt negative associations for prospective students…’
To make matters worse… a jewel-encrusted ceremonial mace with Confederate
symbols used since 1965 ‘accidentally breaking’…”),
Civil War Courier, Volume 21, Issue 1, January, 2006

109. University of
the South: Timeline, front page investigative expose (“…a
new administration arrived… quest for national respect by trying
to get into the Top 25… The University declared that the broken
Mace would be placed in the University Archives and a new mace had been
commissioned. …news articles prompted alumni… to send checks
to the University to repair the Mace; all checks were returned…”),
Civil War Courier, Volume 21, Issue 1, January, 2006

110. Civil War Courier
on the Battle of Sewanee, post of Civil War Courier article, Comments
section (“If you do not respect the heritage of the place, it is
time for the administrators to move onto other greener pastures. This
is nothing but insulting;” “This effort to change the university
into a southern annex of the Ivy League has been going on for some time
and will continue until those members of the faculty who are ashamed of
Sewanee’s heritage find employment where they would be more comfortable.
And the sooner the better;” “I thought Sewanee was supposed
to HIDE its Confederates, not show them on the front page of the New York
Times to the yankee, minority and other multi-cult admissions preferreds.”),
Drell’s Descants blog, January 4, 2006

111. Address Insensitivity,
Letter to the Editor (“Even more disappointing is Sewanee keeping
up a Confederate monument on campus… Does the university know what
an offensive message Confederate symbols convey? As part of the inclusive
Episcopal Church, it should.”), The Living Church, January 15, 2006

112. Bumper
Stickers: sightings on the Domain of THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH post-
“Sewanee: The University of the South” name change (1. “SEWANEE
IS NOT A COLON” [derivative of “SEWANEE IS NOT A RIVER”
bumper sticker]; 2.“SEWANEE/Animosity of the South;” 3. bright
red Confederate battle flag combined with “SEWANEE”)